university, millersville, pa, usa luther examined and reexamined a review of catholic criticism and a plea for revaluation by w.h.t. dau, professor, concordia theological seminary st. louis, mo. concordia publishing house preface. one may deplore the pathetic courage which periodically heartens catholic writers for the task of writing against luther, but one can understand the necessity for such efforts, and, accordingly, feel a real pity for those who make them. attacks on luther are demanded for catholics by the law of self-preservation. a recent catholic writer correctly says: "there is no doubt that the religious problem to-day is still the luther problem." "almost every statement of those religious doctrines which are opposed to catholic moral teaching find their authorization in the theology of martin luther." rome has never acknowledged her errors nor admitted her moral defeat. the lessons of past history are wasted upon her. rome is determined to assert to the end that she was not, and cannot be, vanquished. in the age of the reformation, she admits, she suffered some losses, but she claims that she is fast retrieving these, while protestantism is decadent and decaying. no opposition to her can hope to succeed. this is done to bolster up catholic courage. the intelligent catholic layman of the present day makes his own observations, and draws his own conclusions as to the status and the future prospect of protestantism. therefore, he must be invited to "acquaint himself with the lifestory of the man, whose followers can never explain away the anarchy of that immoral dogma: 'be a sinner, and sin boldly; but believe more boldly still!' he must be shown the many hideous scenes of coarseness, vulgarity, obscenity, and degrading immorality in martin luther's life." when the catholic rises from the contemplation of these scenes, it is hoped that his mind has become ironclad against protestant argument. these attacks upon luther are a plea _pro domo_, the effort of a strong man armed to keep his palace and his goods in peace. occurring, as they do, in this year of the four-hundredth anniversary of the reformation, these attacks, moreover, represent a catholic counter-demonstration to the protestant celebration of the quadricentenary of luther's theses. they are the customary cries of dissent and vigorous expressions of disgust which at a public meeting come from parties in the audience that are not pleased with the speaker on the stage. if the counter-demonstration includes in its program the obliging application of eggs in an advanced state of maturity to the speaker, and chooses to emphasize its presence to the very nostrils of the audience, that, too, is part of the prevailing custom. it is aesthetically incorrect, to be sure, but it is in line historically with former demonstrations. no protestant celebration would seem normal without them. they help protestants in their preparations for the jubilee to appreciate the remarks of david in psalm , : "rejoice with trembling." and if shakespeare was correct in the statement: "sweet are the uses of adversity," they need not be altogether deplored. an attempt is made in these pages to review the principal charges and arguments of catholic critics of luther. the references to luther's works are to the st. louis edition; those to the book of concord, to the people's edition. authors must be modest, and as a rule they are. in the domain of historical research there is rarely anything that is final. this observation was forced upon the present writer with unusual power as the rich contents of his subjects opened up to him during his study. he has sought to be comprehensive, at least, as regards essential facts, in every chapter; he does not claim that his presentation is final. he hopes that it may stimulate further research. this book is frankly polemical. it had to be, or there would have been no need of writing it. it seeks to meet both the assertions and the spirit of luther's catholic critics. a review ought to be a mirror, and mirrors must reflect. but there is no malice in the author's effort. w. h. t. dau. concordia seminary, st. louis, mo. may , . table of contents. l. luther worship . luther hatred . luther blemishes . luther's task . the popes in luther's time . luther's birth and parentage . luther's great mistake . luther's failure as a monk . professor luther, d. d. . luther's "discovery" of the bible . rome and the bible . luther's visit at rome . pastor luther . the case of luther's friend myconius . luther's faith without works . the fatalist luther . luther a teacher of lawlessness . luther repudiates the ten commandments . luther's invisible church . luther on the god-given supremacy of the pope . luther the translator of the bible . luther a preacher of violence against the hierarchy . luther, anarchist and despot all in one . luther the destroyer of liberty of conscience . "the adam and eve of the new gospel of concubinage" . luther an advocate of polygamy . luther announces his death . luther's view of his slanderers . luther worship. catholic writers profess themselves shocked by the unblushing veneration which luther receives from protestants. such epithets as "hero of the reformation," "angel with the everlasting gospel flying through the midst of heaven," "restorer of the christian faith," grate on catholic nerves. luther's sayings are cited with approval by all sorts of men. men feel that their cause is greatly strengthened by having luther on their side. luther's name is a name to conjure with. hardly a great man has lived in the last four hundred years but has gone on record as an admirer of luther. rome, accordingly, cries out that luther is become the uncanonized saint of protestantism, yea, the deified expounder of the evangelical faith. coming from a church that venerates and adores and prays to--you must not say "worships"--as many saints as there are days in the calendar, this stricture is refreshing. saints not only of questionable sanctity, but of doubtful existence have been worshiped--beg pardon! venerated-- by catholics. what does the common law say about the prosecution coming into court with clean hands? if there is such a thing among protestants as "religious veneration" of luther, what shall we call the veneration of mary among catholics? pius ix, on december , , proclaimed the "immaculate conception," that is, the sinlessness of mary from the very first moment of her existence, thus removing her from the sphere of sin-begotten humanity. in , the press of the country was preparing its readers for another move towards the deification of mary: her "assumption" was to be declared. that is, it was to be declared a catholic dogma that the corpse of mary did not see corruption, and was at the moment of her death removed to heaven. the _pasadena star_ of august th in that year wrote: "it is now known that since his recent illness pope pius, realizing that his active pontificate is practically at an end, has expressed to some of the highest dignitaries of the catholic church at rome the desire to round out his career by this last great act." the _western watchman_ of july d in that year had in its inimitable style referred to the coming dogma, thus: "what catholic in the world to-day would say that the immaculately conceived body of the blessed virgin was allowed to rot in the grave? the catholic mind would rebel against the thought; and death would be preferred to the blasphemous outrage." the grounds for wanting the "assumption" of mary fixed in a dogma were these: "catholics believe in the bodily assumption of the blessed virgin, because their faith instinctively teaches them that such a thing is possible and proper, and that settles it in favor of the belief. the body of our lord should not taste corruption, neither should the body that gave him his body. the flesh that was bruised for our sins was the flesh of mary. the blood that was shed for our salvation was drawn from mary's veins. it would be improper that the virgin mother should be allowed to see corruption if her son was exempted from the indignity." if any should be so rash as to question the propriety of the new dogma, the writer held out this pleasant prospect to them: "dogmas are stones at the heads of heretics. . . . the eyes of all catholics see aright; if they are afflicted with strabismus, the church resorts to an operation. all catholics hear aright; if they do not, the church applies a remedy to their organ of hearing. these surgical operations go under the name of dogmas." the world remembers with what success an operation of this kind was performed on a number of roman prelates, who questioned the infallibility of the pope. the dogma was simply declared in , and that put a quietus to all catholic scruples. some day the "assumption" of mary will be proclaimed as a catholic dogma. we should not feel surprised if ultimately a dogma were published to the effect that the holy trinity is a holy quartet, with mary as the fourth person of the godhead. the roman church is accustomed to speak of her supreme pontiff, the holy father, the vicegerent of christ, his infallible holiness, in terms that lift a human being to heights of adoration unknown among protestants. for centuries the tendency in the roman church to make of the pope "a god on earth" has been felt and expressed in christendom. this church wants to preach to protestants about the sin of man-worship! verily, here we have the parable of the mote and the beam in a twentieth century edition. catholic teachers would be the last ones, we imagine, whom scrupulous christians would choose for instructing them regarding the sin of idolatry and the means to avoid it. no protestant regards luther as catholics regard mary, not even patrick. luther has taught them too well for that. unwittingly the catholics themselves have immortalized luther by naming the evangelical church after luther. luther declined the honor. "i beg," he said, "not to have my name mentioned, and to call people not lutheran, but christian. what is luther? the doctrine is not mine, nor have i been crucified for any one. . . . the papists deserve to have a party-name, for they are not content with the doctrine and name of christ; they want to be popish also. well, let them be called popish, for the pope is their master. i am not, and i do not want to be, anybody's master." ( , .) it is likely that the frequent laudatory mention of luther's name, especially in connection with the present anniversary of the reformation, is taken as a challenge by catholics. if it is that, it is so by the choice of catholics. it is impossible to speak of a great man without referring to the conflicts that made him great. "he makes no friend," says tennyson, "who never made a foe." "the man who has no enemies," says donn piatt, "has no following." opposition is one of the accepted marks of greatness. the opposition which great men aroused during their lifetime lives after them, and crops out again on a given occasion. this is deplorable, but it is the ordinary course. moreover, it is possible that in a season of great joy like that which the quadricentenary of the reformation has ushered in orators and writers may fail to put a due check on their enthusiasm and may overstate a fact. such things happen even among catholics, we believe, but they will be negligible quantities in the present celebration. the proper corrective for them will be provided by protestants themselves. the vast majority of those who have embraced the spiritual leadership of luther in matters pertaining to christian doctrine and morals will prove again that they are in no danger of inaugurating man-worship. the spirit of luther is too much alive in them for that. they will, with the marquis of brandenburg, declare: "if i be asked whether with heart and lip i confess that faith which god has restored to us by luther as his instrument, i have no scruple, nor have i a disposition to shrink from the name lutheran. thus understood, i am, and shall to my dying hour remain, a lutheran." they will ever be able to distinguish between the man luther, prone to error and sin like any other mortal, and the luther who fought the battle of the lord and had a mission of everlasting import to the church and the world. they have shown on numerous occasions that they can be friends of luther, and yet criticize him or dissent from him. if they had not, there would be no protestants whom catholics can quote as "opponents" of luther. on the other hand, if any one undertakes to enlighten the public with a view of luther, protestants will insist that his estimate comport with the facts in the case, and that the name of a great man who deserves well of posterity be not traduced. why, even the catholic von schlegel thinks luther has not been half esteemed as he ought to be. . luther hatred. catholic writers have found so much to censure in the character and writings of luther that one is amazed, after reading them, how luther ever could become regarded as a great and good man. criminal blindness must have held the eyes, not only of luther's associates, but of his entire age, yea, of men for centuries after, if they failed to see luther's constitutional baseness. quite recently a catholic writer has told the world in one chapter of his book that "the apostate monk of wittenberg" was possessed of "a violent, despotic, and uncontrolled nature," that he was "depraved in manners and in speech." he speaks of luther's "ungovernable transports, riotous proceedings, angry conflicts, and intemperate controversies," of luther's "contempt of all the accepted forms of human right and all authority, human and divine," of "his unscrupulous mendacity," "his perverse principles," "his wild pronouncements." he calls luther "a lawless one," "one of the most intolerant of men," "a revolutionist, not a reformer." he says that luther "attempted reformation and ended in deformation." he charges luther with having written and preached "not for, but against good works," with having assumed rights to himself in the matter of liberty of conscience which "he unhesitatingly and imperiously denied to all who differed from him," with having "rent asunder the unity of the church," with having "disgraced the church by a notoriously wicked and scandalous life," with having "declared it to be the right of every man to interpret the bible to his own individual conception," with "one day proclaiming the binding force of the ten commandments and the next declaring they were not obligatory on christian observance," with having "reviled and hated and cursed the church of his fathers." these opprobrious remarks are only a part of the vileness of which the writer has delivered himself in his first chapter. his whole book bristles with assertions of luther's inveterate badness. this coarse and crooked luther, we are told, is the real luther, the genuine article. the luther of history is only a protestant fiction. protestants like prof. seeberg of berlin, and others, who have criticized luther, are introduced as witnesses for the catholic allegation that luther was a thoroughly bad man. we should like to ascertain the feelings of these protestants when they are informed what use has been made of their remarks about luther. some of them may yet let the world know what they think of the attempt to make them the squires of such knights errant as denifle and grisar. it is about ten years ago since the jesuit grisar began to publish his _life of luther,_ twice that time, since denifle painted his caricature of luther. several generations ago janssen, in his _history of the german nation,_ gave the catholic interpretation of luther and the reformation. going back still further, we come to the jesuit maimbourg, to witzel, and in luther's own time to cochlaeus and oldecop, all of whom strove to convince the world that luther was a moral degenerate and a reprobate. the book of mgr. o'hare, which has made its appearance on the eve of the four-hundredth anniversary of luther's theses, is merely another eruption from the same mud volcano that became active in luther's lifetime. it is the old dirt that has come forth. rome must periodically relieve itself in this manner, or burst. rome hated the living luther, and cannot forget him since he is dead. it hates him still. its hatred is become full-grown, robust, vigorous with the advancing years. when rome speaks its mind about luther, it cannot but speak in terms of malignant scorn. if luther could read mgr. o'hare's book, he would say: "wes das herz voll ist, des gehet der mund ueber." (matt. , : "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.") luther has done one thing which rome will never pardon: he dared to attack the supreme authority of the pope. he made men see the ignominious bondage in which cunning priests had ensnared them, and by restoring them to the liberty with which christ had made them free luther caused the papacy an irreparable loss. the papal system of teaching and government was so thoroughly exposed by luther, and has since been so completely disavowed by a great part of professing christians that rome cannot practise its old frauds any longer. men have become extremely wary of rome. that is what hurts. the catholic writer to whom we referred sums up the situation thus: since luther "all protestant mankind descending by ordinary generation have come into the world with a mentality biased, perverted, and prejudiced." that is rome's way of looking at the matter. the truth is: the world is forewarned, hence forearmed against the pleas of rome. it pays only an indifferent attention to vilifications of luther that come from that quarter, because it expects no encomiums and only scant justice for luther from rome. but it is the business of the teachers of protestant principles in religion, particularly of the church historians of protestantism, to take notice of the campaign of slander that is launched against luther by catholic writers at convenient intervals. it is not a task to delight the soul, rather to try the patience, of christians. for in the study of the causes for these calumnies against a great man of history, and of the possible means for their removal, one is forced invariably to the conclusion that there is but one cause, and that is hatred. what can poor mortal man do to break down such a cause? it does not yield to logic and historical facts, because it is in its very nature unreasoning and unreasonable. still, for the hour that god sends to all the sauls that roam the earth breathing threatening and slaughter, the counter arguments should be ready. no slander against luther has ever gone unanswered. as the charges against luther have become stereotyped, so the rejoinder cannot hope to bring forward any new facts. but it seems necessary that each generation in the church militant be put through the old drills, and learn its fruitful lessons of spiritual adversity. thus even these polemical exchanges between catholics and protestants become blessings in disguise. but they do not affect luther. the sublime figure of the courageous confessor of christ that has stood towering in the annals of the christian church for four hundred years stands unshaken, silent, and grand, despite the froth that is dashed against its base and the lightning from angry clouds that strikes its top. "surely, the wrath of man shall praise thee." (ps. , .) . luther blemishes. when luther is charged with immoral conduct, and the specific facts together with the documentary evidence are not submitted along with the charge, little can be done in the way of rebuttal. one can only guess at the grounds on which the charge is based. for instance, when luther is said to have disgraced the church by a notoriously wicked and scandalous life, the reason is most likely because he married although he was a monk sworn to remain single. moreover, he married a noble lady who was a nun, also sworn to celibacy. according to the inscrutable ethics of rome this is concubinage, although the scripture plainly declares that a minister of the church should be the husband of one wife, tim. , , and no vows can annul the ordinance and commandment of god: "it is not good that man should be alone." gen. , . comp. cor. , , and augsburg confession, art. . when luther is said to have reviled, hated, and cursed the church of his fathers, the probable reason is, because he wrote the _babylonian captivity of the church_ and _the papacy at rome founded by the devil_. in these writings luther depicts the true antichristian inwardness of the papacy. by so doing, however, luther restored the church of his fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers in christ down to the first ancestor of our race. luther's faith is none other than the faith of the true church in all the ages. luther's own father and mother died in that faith. when luther is said to have taught nietzsche's insanity about the "superhuman" (uebermensch) before nietzsche, to have put the ten commandments out of commission for christians, and to have preached against good works, the reasons most likely are these: luther taught salvation in accordance with rom. , : "we conclude that a man is justified by faith, without the deeds of the law." luther taught that a person is not saved by his own works, and if he performs good works with that end in view, he shames his lord and savior jesus christ, who is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth (rom. , ), and he falls under the curse of god for placing his own merits alongside of the merit of the redeemer's sacrifice. in no other connection has luther spoken against good works. he has rather taught men how to become fruitful in well-doing by the sanctifying grace of god and according to the inspiring example of the matchless jesus. concerning the law, luther preached tim. , : "the law is not made for a righteous man," that is, christians do the works of the law, not for the law's sake, but for the sake of christ, whom they love and whose mind is in them. they must not be driven like slaves to obey god, but their very faith prompts them to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world (tit. , ). but luther always held that the rule for good works is laid down in the holy law of god, and only in that; also that the law must be applied to christians, in as far as they still live in, the flesh, and are not become altogether spiritual. luther's public activity as a preacher began with a series of sermons on the ten commandments, and this effort to expound the divine norm of righteousness was repeated several times during luther's life. luther's expositions of the decalog are among the finest that the world possesses. moreover, luther wrote the small catechism. hand any catholic who talks about luther having abolished the ten commandments this little book. that is a sufficient refutation. what luther teaches in this book he has given his life to reduce to practise in himself and others. he says in a sermon on easter monday, : "when rising in the morning, i pray with my children the ten commandments, the creed, the lord's prayer, and some psalm. i do this because i want to make myself cling to these truths. i shall not suffer my faith to become mildewed with the imagination that i am above these things (_dass ich's koenne_)." his sermon on the first sunday in advent in the same year he begins thus: "dear friends, i am now an old doctor, still i find every day that i must recite with the children the ten commandments, the creed, and the lord's prayer, and i have always derived a great benefit and blessing from this practise." ( , . .) luther is charged with mendacity, that is, he is said to have lied. the reasons that will be given for this charge, when called for, will probably be these: luther at various times in his life gave three different years as the year of his birth, three different years as the year when he made his journey to rome, and advised somebody in to become a monk when he had already commenced to denounce the monastic life: it is true that luther did all these things, but it is also true that luther believed himself right in each of his statements. he was simply mistaken. other people have misstated the year of their birth without being branded liars on that account. sometimes even a professor forgets things, and luther was a professor. what luther has said about the rigor of his monastic life is perfectly true, but it was no reason why in he should counsel men to become monks. he had not yet come to the full knowledge of the wrong principles underlying that mode of life. to adduce such inaccuracies as evidence of prevarication is itself an insincere act and puts the claimant by right in the ananias club. luther is said to have been a glutton and a drunkard. "let us examine the facts. what is the evidence? luther's obesity and his gout. is that evidence? not in any court. it would be evidence if both conditions were caused, and caused only, by gluttony and tippling. but this notoriously is not the case. obesity may be due to disease. a man may even eat little and wax stout if what he eats turns into adipose rather than into muscular tissue. as for gout, it is the result of uric acid diathesis. now uric acid diathesis may be, and very often is, caused by high living, but often, too, it is due to quite different causes. just as in the case of bright's disease. i do not deny that luther drank freely both beer and wine. so did everybody else. people drank beer as we do coffee. . . . moreover, in the sixteenth century alcoholic beverages were prescribed for the maladies from which luther suffered much--kidneys and nervous trouble. we now know that in such cases alcohol proves a very poison; but this luther could not know. but intemperate . . . in his use of strong drink luther was not. neither was he a glutton. before he married, he ate very irregularly, and often completely forgot his meals. when he could not get meat and wine, he contented himself with bread and water. . . . melanchthon tells us that luther loved the coarse food as he did the coarse speech of the peasantry, and even of that food ate little, so little that melanchthon marveled how luther could maintain strength upon such a diet.--it is further a noteworthy fact that, when we read the sermons of the day, we find nobody who so frequently and so earnestly attacks the prevailing vice of drunkenness as does luther. now, whatever luther may or may not have been, hypocrite he was not. had he himself been intemperate, he would not have preached against it in such a manner. furthermore, luther was under constant espionage. his every move was noted. people knew how many patches there were on his undergarments. think you, think you for a moment, that the wittenbergians would have listened meekly to luther's repeated assaults upon the wide-spread sin of intemperance, had they known him for a confirmed tippler? it is too absurd.--but the best evidence for the defense comes from a mute witness--luther's industry. he wrote more than four hundred books, brochures, sermons, and so forth, filling more than one hundred volumes of the erlangen edition. there are extant more than three thousand of his letters, which represent only a small proportion of all that he wrote. thus we know, for example, that one evening in luther wrote ten letters, of which only two have been preserved. he was, furthermore, in frequent conference with leaders in both church and state. he preached on sundays and lectured on week-days. now, a man may, it is true, perform a considerable amount of manual labor even after overeating and overdrinking, but every physician will admit the correctness of my assertion, it is a physiological impossibility that a man could habitually overindulge in food or liquor, or both, and still get over the enormous amount of intellectual work that luther performed day to day" (boehmer, _the man luther,_ p. f.) most shameless have been the charges of lewdness and immorality against luther. his relation to frau cotta has been represented as impure. think of it, a boy of sixteen to eighteen thus related to an honorable housewife! illegitimate children have been foisted upon him. a humorous remark about his intention to marry and being unable to choose between several eligible parties has been twisted into an immoral meaning. the fact that he gave shelter overnight to a number of escaped nuns, when he was already a married man, has been meaningly referred to. boehmer has exhaustively gone into these charges, examining without flinching every asserted fact cited in evidence of luther's moral corruptness, and has shown the purity of luther as being above reproach. not one of the sexual vagaries imputed to luther rests on a basis of fact. (boehmer, _luther in light of recent research,_ pp. - .) when the modern reader meets with a general charge of badness, or even with the assertion of some specific form of badness, in luther, he should inquire at once to what particular incident in luther's life reference is made. these charges have all been examined and the evidence sifted, and that by impartial investigators. protestants have taken the lead in this work and have not glossed anything over. boehmer's able treatise has been translated into english. walther's _fuer luther wider rom_ will, no doubt, be given the public in an english edition soon. works like these have long blasted the claim of catholics that protestants are afraid to have the truth told about luther. they only demand that the _truth_ be told. . luther's task. one blemish in the character of luther that is often cited with condemnation even by protestants deserves to be examined separately. it is luther's violence in controversy, his coarse language, his angry moods. all will agree that violence and coarse speech must not be countenanced in christians, least of all in teachers of christianity. in the writings of luther there occur terms, phrases, passages that sound repulsive. the strongest admirer of luther will have moments when he wishes certain things could have been said differently. luther's language cannot be repeated in our times. some who have tried to do that in all sincerity have found to their dismay that they were wholly misunderstood. what jove may do any ox may not do, says an old latin proverb. shall we, then, admit luther's fault and proceed to apologize for him and find plausible reasons for extenuating his indiscretions in speech and his temperamental faults? we shall do neither. we shall let this "foul-mouthed," coarse luther stand before the bar of public opinion just as he is. his way cannot be our way, but ultimately none of us will be his final judges. the character of the duties which luther was sent to perform must be his justification. it is true, indeed, that the manners of the age of luther were generally rough. even in polite society language was freely used that would make us gasp. coarse terms evidently were not felt to be such. in their polemical writings the learned men of the age seem to exhaust a zoological park in their frantic search for striking epithets to hurl at their opponent. it was an age of strong feeling and sturdy diction. it is also true that luther was a man of the people. with a sort of homely pride he used to declare: "i am a peasant's son; all my forbears were peasants." but all this does not sufficiently explain luther's "coarseness." most people that criticize luther for his strong speech have read little else of luther. they are not aware that in the, great mass of his writings there is but a small proportion of matter that would nowadays be declared objectionable. luther speaks through many pages, yea, through whole books, with perfect calmness. it is interesting to observe how he develops a thought, illustrates a point by an episode from history or from every-day life, urges a lesson with a lively exhortation. he is pleasant, gentle, serious, compassionate, artlessly eloquent, and, withal, perfectly pure in all he says. when luther becomes "coarse," there is a reason. one must have read much in luther, one should have read all of luther, and his "billingsgate" will assume a different meaning. if there is madness in his reckless speech, there is method in it. one must try and understand luther's objective and purpose. luther had a very coarse subject to deal with, and luther believed that a spade is best called a spade. luther never struck at wickedness with the straw of a fine circumlocution. he believed that he had the right, yea, the duty, to call coarse things by coarse names; for the bible does the same. luther has called the gentlemen at the pope's court in his day some very descriptive names. he did not merely insinuate that the cardinals of his day were no angels, but said outright what they were. he did not feebly question the holiness of his holiness, but he called some of the popes monsters of iniquity and reprobates. we shall show anon that in that age there lived men who spoke of the same matters as luther, who told tales and used expressions that would render their writings unmailable to-day. the great men of any age are products of that age. man is as much the creature of circumstances as circumstances are the creatures of men-- disraeli to the contrary notwithstanding. while men may create situations, they may also be made to fit into a situation. men have become great for this very reason that they understand the spirit of their age and were able to respond to its call. back of both men and circumstances, however, stands sovereign providence, shaping our ends, rough-hew them how we will. no character-study is just that fails to take into consideration the force of circumstances under which the subject of the study has acted at a given moment in his life. in the case of luther there is a more than ordinary necessity for adopting this equitable method; for luther has declared hundreds of times that his stirring utterances and incisive deeds were not the result of long premeditation, or the sudden outbursts of uncontrolled passion,--though neither he nor we would have any interest in denying that he could be angry and did become angry,--but the answer to crying needs of the times. this answer was on many a signal occasion wrung from luther after much wrestling with god in prayer. he was moved to action by the heroism of that faith which had been kindled in him. he acted in harmony with the particular issue with which he was called upon to deal. deep compassion at the sight of his suffering fellow-men put strong language on his lips. between the pleading of friends and the storming of enemies he had no choice but to act as he did. luther often seems unconscious of the greatness of his acts: he speaks of them as "his poor way of doing things," and invites others to improve what he has attempted. we fear that many in our day fail to see the greatness of the achievement while they stricture the manner of achieving it. few men have so utterly lived for a cause, in a cause, and with a cause as luther. it is the heart of an entire people that cries out through luther; it is the soul of outraged christianity that moans in anguish, and speaks with the majesty of righteous anger through luther. an age of unparalleled ferment that had begun long before luther has reached its culminating point, and lifts up its strident voice of long-restrained expostulation through luther. remove the conditions under which luther had to live and labor, and the luther whom men bless or curse becomes an impossibility. in luther's life-work there is discernible the influence not only of good men, such as the scholarly melanchthon, the faithful jonas, the firm and kind saxon electors, the eager amsdorf, the alert link, but also of evil men like the blunt tetzel, the wily prierias, and the horde of ignorant monks which the monasteries and chancelleries of rome let loose upon one man. the course which luther had to pursue was shaped for him by others. we do not mean to suggest that luther in his polemical writings employed the cheap method of replying to the coarse language adopted by his opponents in similar language; but it is fair to him that this fact be recorded. some people remember very well that luther addressed the pope "most hellish father!" and are horrified, but they forget that the pope had been extremely lurid in the appellatives which he applied to luther. "child of belial," "son of perdition," were some of the endearing terms with which luther was to be assured of the loving interest the holy father took in him. that luther called henry viii "a damnable and rotten worm" seems to be well remembered, but that the british king had called luther "a wolf of hell" is forgotten. it goes without saying that the contact with such opponents did for luther what it does for every person who is not made of granite and cast iron: it roused his temper. it should not have been permitted to do that, we say. assuredly. luther thinks so too, but with a reservation, as we shall learn. the "imperious spirit" and "violent measures" charged against luther a careful reader of history will rather find on the side of luther's opponents. they plainly relied on the power of rome to crush luther by brute force. what respect could a plain, honest man like luther conceive for men like cajetanus, eck, and hoogstraten, who were first sent by the vatican to negotiate his surrender? for publishing simple bible-truth the cardinal at augsburg roared and bellowed at him, "recant! recant!" even at this early stage of the affair matters assumed such an ominous aspect that luther's friends urged him to quietly leave the city. they did not trust the amicable gentleman from the polished circle of the pope's immediate counselors. at leipzig, eck had been driven into the corner by luther's unanswerable arguments from scripture; then he turned to abuse and called luther a bohemian and a hussite, and finally left the hall with the air of a victor to celebrate his achievement in the taverns and brothels of the city, where he found his customary delights learned from his masters at rome. can any language of contempt in which luther afterwards spoke of this doughty champion of rome be too strong? among the attendants at the leipzig debate was hoogstraten. this gentleman followed the elevating profession of torturing and burning heretics in germany,--the territory especially assigned to him. it looked as if he had come to leipzig to follow up eck's verbal thunder with the inquisitorial lightning, and make of luther actually another hus. when he found that he would not have an opportunity for plying his hideous trade this time, he ventured into territory where he was a stranger: he attempted a theological argument with luther. he asserted that by denying the primacy of the pope, luther had contradicted the scriptures and defied the council of nice, and must be suppressed. luther called him an unsophisticated ass and a bloodthirsty enemy of the truth. certainly, that does not sound nice, but such things happen, as a rule, when fools rush in where angels fear to tread. what was the papal bull of excommunication against luther, with its list of most opprobrious terms, but an unwarranted provocation of luther, who had a right to expect different treatment from the foremost teacher of christianity to whom he had entrusted his just grievance as a dutiful son of the church? thus we might go on for pages citing instances of reckless attack upon luther, often by most unworthy persons, that drew from luther a reply such as his assailants deserved. it is a gratuitous criticism to say that christians must not revile when they are reviled. those who think that luther did not know this rule of the christian religion, or did not apply it to himself, do not know the full story of his life. he certainly did wrestle with the flesh and blood in himself. he sighed for peace, but the moment he seemed to become conciliatory and pacific, his enemies set up a shout that he was vanquished. it seemed that they could not be made to comprehend the issues confronting them unless they were blown in upon them on the wings of a hurricane. as early as luther replies to an anxious letter of spalatin, who thought that luther had used too strong language against the bishop of meissen, as follows: "good god! how excited you are, my spalatin! you seem even more stirred up than i and the others. do you not see that my patience in not replying to emser's and eck's five or six wagonloads of curses is the sole reason why the framers of this document have dared to attack me with such silly and ridiculous nonsense? for you know how little i cared that my sermon at leipzig was condemned and suppressed by a public edict; how i despised suspicion, infamy, injury, hatred. must these audacious persons even be permitted to add to these follies scandalous pamphlets crammed full of falsehoods and blasphemies against gospel-truth? do you forbid even to bark at these wolves? the lord is my witness how i restrained myself lest i should not treat with reverence this accursed and most impotent document issued in the bishop's name. otherwise i should have said things those heads ought to hear, and i will yet, when they acknowledge their authorship by beginning to defend themselves. i beg, if you think rightly of the gospel, do not imagine its cause can be accomplished without tumult, scandal, and sedition. out of the sword you cannot make a feather, nor out of war, peace. the word of god is a sword, war, ruin, destruction, poison, and, as amos says, it meets the children of ephraim like a bear in the way and a lioness in the woods.--i cannot deny that i have been more vehement than is seemly. but since they knew this, they ought not to have stirred up the dog. how difficult it is to temper one's passions and one's pen you can judge even from your own case. this is the reason i have always disliked to engage in public controversy; but the more i dislike it, the more i am involved against my will, and that only by the most atrocious slanders brought against me and the word of god. if i were not carried away thereby either in temper or pen, even a heart of stone would be moved by the indignity of the thing to take up arms; and how much more i, who am both passionate and possessed of a pen not altogether blunt! by these monstrosities i am driven beyond modesty and decorum. at the same time, i wonder where this new religion came from, that whatever you say against an adversary is slander. what do you think of christ? was he a slanderer when he called the jews an adulterous and perverse generation, the offspring of vipers, hypocrites, sons of the devil? and what about paul when he used the words dogs, vain babblers, seducers, ignorant, and in acts so inveighed against a false prophet that he seems almost insane: `oh, thou full of deceit and of all craft, thou son of the devil, enemy of the truth'? why did he not gently flatter him, that he might convert him, rather than thunder in such a way? it is not possible, if acquainted with the truth, to be patient with inflexible and ungovernable enemies of the truth. but enough of this nonsense. i see that everybody wishes i were gentle, especially my enemies, who show themselves least so of all. if i am too little gentle, i am at least simple and open, and therein, as i believe, surpass them, for they dispute only in a deceitful fashion." ( , f. translation by mcgiffert.) nobody should make luther any better than he makes himself. still, the question is pertinent whether violent polemics can ever be engaged in by christians with a good conscience. luther has asserted that, while he hurled his terrible denunciations against the adversaries of the truth, his heart was disposed to friendship and peace with them. ( , f.) is a state of mind like this altogether inconceivable, viz., that a person can curse another for a certain act and at the same time love him? we think not. in his day this boisterous, turbulent luther was understood, trusted, and loved by the people. after the publication of the theses against tetzel "the hearts of men in all parts of the land turned toward him, and his heart turned toward them. for the religious principles underlying the theses they cared little, for the arguments sustaining them still less. they saw only that here was a man, muzzled by none of the prudential considerations closing the mouths of many in high places, who dared to speak his mind plainly and emphatically, and was able to speak it intelligently and with effect upon a great and growing evil deplored by multitudes. it is such a man the people love and such a man they trust." (mcgiffert, _luther,_ p. f.) mcgiffert has the right perception of the luther of - when he describes him as "the awakening reformer," thus: "he had the true reformer's conscience--the sense of responsibility for others as well as for himself, and the true reformer's vision of the better things that ought to be. he was never a mere faultfinder, but he was endowed with the gifts of imagination and sympathy, leading him to feel himself a part of every situation he was placed in, and with the irrepressible impulse to action driving him to take upon himself the burden of it. in any crowd of bystanders he would have been first to go to the rescue where need was, and quickest to see the need not obvious to all. the aloofness of the mere observer was not his; he was too completely one with all he saw to stand apart and let it go its way alone. fearful and distrustful of himself he long was, but his timidity was only the natural shrinking before new and untried duties of a soul that saw more clearly and felt more keenly than most. the imperative demands inevitably made upon him by every situation led him instinctively to dread putting himself where he could not help responding to the call of unfamiliar tasks; but once there, the summons was irresistible, and he threw himself into the new responsibilities with a forgetfulness of self possible only to him who has denied its claims, and with a fearlessness possible only to him who has conquered fear. he might interpret his confidence as trust in god, won by the path of a complete contempt of his own powers; but however understood, it gave him an independence and a disregard of consequences which made his conscience and his vision effective for reform." mcgiffert suggests a comparison of luther with, let us say, erasmus. had he been a humanist, he would have laughed the whole thing [tetzel's selling of indulgences] to scorn as an exploded superstition beneath the contempt of an intelligent man; had he been a scholastic theologian, he would have sat in his study and drawn fine distinctions to justify the traffic without bothering himself about its influence upon the lives of the vulgar populace. but he was neither humanist nor schoolman. he had a conscience which made indifference impossible, and a simplicity and directness of vision which compelled him to brush aside all equivocation and go straight to the heart of things. with it all he was at once a devout and believing son of the church, and a practical preacher profoundly concerned for the spiritual and moral welfare of the common people." (p. f. .) had luther considered his personal interests as erasmus did, he would not have become the luther that we know. erasmus in his day was regarded as the wisest of men; luther in his own view, like paul, frequently had to make a fool of himself in order to achieve his purpose. for instance, when he wrote against the dullards at the university of louvain, against the sacrilegious coterie at rome that was running the church and the world pretty much as they pleased, or against the brutal "hans wurst" (duke henry of brunswick). erasmus and his school of gentle reformers always counseled a slackening of the pace and the use of the soft pedal. where is erasmus to-day in the world's valuation? even rome, in whose bosom he nestled, and who fondled him for a season, has cast him aside as worthless. luther lives yet, to the delight not only of coleridge, but of millions of the world's best men, who, with the british divine, regard him this very hour as "a purifying and preserving spirit to christianity at large." luther was conscious of the difference in the method of warfare between himself and his colaborer melanchthon. he says: "i am rough, boisterous, stormy, and altogether warlike. i am born to fight against innumerable monsters and devils. i must remove stumps and stones, cut away thistles and thorns, and clear wild forests; but master philip comes along softly and gently, sowing and watering with joy, according to the gifts which god has abundantly bestowed upon him," ( , .) dr. tholuck, writing on "luther's rashness," says: "what would have become of the church if the lord's servants and prophets had at all times done nothing else than spread salves upon sores and walk softly?" he introduces luther in his own defense: "on one occasion, when asked by the marquis joachim i why he wrote against the princes, he returned the beautiful answer: 'when god intends to fertilize the ground, he must needs send first of all a good thunderstorm, and afterwards slow and gentle rain, and thus make it thoroughly productive.' elsewhere he says: 'a willow-branch may be cut with a knife and bent with a finger, but for a great and gnarled oak we must use an ax and a wedge'; and again: 'if my teeth had been less sharp, the pope would have been more voracious.' 'of what use is salt,' he exclaims in another passage, 'if it do not bite the tongue? or the blade of a sword unless it be sharp enough to cut? does not the prophet say, "cursed be he that doeth the work of the lord deceitfully, and keepeth back his sword from blood"?'" one reflection suggests itself in this connection that goes far to exonerate luther: the language which the bible employs against heretics and ungodly men. it calls them dogs, ps. , ; , ; is. , ; matt. , ; phil. , ; rev. , ; swine, matt. , ; boars and wild beasts, ps. , ; dromedaries and asses, jer. , f.; bullocks, jer. , ; bellowing bulls, jer. , ; viper's brood, matt. , ; foxes, cant. , ; luke , ; serpents, matt. , ; sons of belial, sam. , ; children of the devil, acts , ; satan's synagog, rev. , . as regards its language, the bible, too, agrees with the conditions of the times in which it was written. when god, to express his righteous anger, addresses the ungodly in such terms of utter contempt, he teaches us how to regard them and, on occasion, to speak of them. this "coarse" luther is not more vehement and repulsive in his speech than the holy word of god. we remarked before that we would not apologize for luther's rashness and coarse speech. luther's acts are self-vindicating; they will approve themselves to the discriminating judgment of every reader of history. we can appreciate this sentiment of mcgiffert : "as well apologize for the fury of the wind as for the vehemence of martin luther." the psalmist calls upon the forces of nature: "praise the lord, fire, and hail; snow and vapors; stormy wind fulfilling his word." (ps. , . .) god has a mission that our philosophy does not fathom for the mad hurry and destruction of the whirlwind. how silly it would be to criticize a cyclone because it is not a zephyr! we can imagine a scene like this: the battle of gettysburg is in progress and a gentle lady is permitted to see it from a distance by a grim, warlike guide, and the following conversation ensues: "why, they are shooting at each other! did you see that naughty man stab the pretty soldier right through his uniform?" "yes, madam, that is what he is there for." "but is it not horrid?" "yes, madam, it is perfectly horrid. it is hell." "but what are they doing this beastly work for?" "madam, they are fighting for a principle that is to keep this country a united republic." "can anything be more horrid?--i mean, not the principle, but this awful butchery." "yes, madam, there is something more horrid than that." "what is it?" "if there would be no one to fight for that principle." war is never a pleasant affair. when men are forced to fight for what is dearer to them than life, they will strike hard and deep. it is silly to expect a soldier to walk up to his enemy with a fly brush and shoo him away, or to stop and consider what posterity would probably regard as the least objectionable way for dispatching an enemy. luther was called to be a warrior; he had to use warriors' methods. any general in a bloody campaign can be criticized for violence with as much reason as is shown by some critics of luther. . the popes in luther's time. to judge intelligently the activity of luther it is necessary to understand the state of the church in his day and the character of the chief bishops of the church. when reading modern censures of luther's attacks upon the papacy, one wonders why nothing is said about the thing that luther attacked. catholic critics of luther surely must know what papal filth lies accumulated in the _commentarii di marino sanuto,_ in alegretto alegretti's _diari sanesi,_ in the _relazione di polo capello,_ in the _diario de sebastiano di branca de tilini,_ in the _successo di la morte di papa alessandro,_ in tommaso inghirami's _fea, notizie intorno rafaele sanzio da urbino,_ and others. ranke worked with these authorities when he wrote his _history of the popes_. what about the authorities which gieseler cites in his _ecclesiastical history_-- muratori, fabronius, machiavelli, sabellicus, raynaldus, eccardus, burchardus, etc.? a compassionate age has relegated the exact account of the moral state of the papacy in luther's days to learned works, and even in these they are given mostly in latin footnotes. in the language of augustus birrell, they are "too coarse." luther's life ( - ) falls into the administration of nine popes: sixtus iv, - ; innocent viii, - ; alexander vi, - ; pius iii, days in ; julius ii, - ; leo x, - ; hadrian vi, - ; clement vii, - ; paul iii, - . speaking of this series of popes, the historian gieseler says: "the succession of popes which now follows proves the degeneracy of the cardinals (from among whom the pope is chosen) as to all discipline and sense of shame: they were distinguished for nothing but undisguised meanness and wickedness; they were reprobates." of sixtus iv he says: "his chief motive was the small ambition to raise his family from their low estate to the highest rank." infamous transactions which resulted in the murder of julian de medici while at high mass in church and the hanging of the archbishop of pisa from a window of the town hall by the exasperated people, wars, conspiracies, alliances, annulments of alliances, in short, all the acts that fill up the turbulent life of a crafty and grasping politician, are recorded for his administration. he did not scruple to employ the authority of his exalted office for the furtherance of his political schemes. thus he excommunicated venice and formed a warlike alliance against the city. but the venetians regarded his religious thunderbolts as little as his physical prowess. "vexation at this hastened the death of the pope, who was hated as much as he was despised." ranke, on the authority of alegretti, relates of pope sixtus iv: "the colonna family, opponents of the pope's nephew riario, was persecuted by him with the most savage ferocity. he seized on their domain of marino, and causing the prothonotary colonna to be attacked in his own house, took him prisoner, and put him to death. the mother of colonna came to st. celso, in banchi, where the corpse lay, and lifting the severed head by its hair, she exclaimed: 'behold the head of my son. such is the truth of the pope. he promised that my son should be set at liberty if marino were delivered into his hands. he is possessed of marino, and, behold, we have my son--but dead. thus does the pope keep his word.'" his successor, innocent viii, "in defiance of the conditions of his election, sought with a still more profligate vileness to exalt and enrich his seven illegitimate children." he had been elected on the condition that he would make only one blood relative a cardinal, and that certain other benefices of the church should not be given to any one related to him. the people called him nocens (the guilty one, or the harmful one) instead of innocent, and immortalized the prolific paternity of this saintly celibate in the following epigram: octo nocens genuit pueros totidemque puellas, hunc merito poterit dicere roma patrem, that is, nocens begat eight boys and an equal number of maidens; rightly, then, rome will be able to call this gentleman father. "he carried on two wars with ferdinand, king of naples, until the year , and brought forward renatus, duke of lorraine, as pretender to his crown. true, he proceeded, as his predecessors had done, to encourage princes and people to undertake expeditions against the turks; but when dschem, the brother and rival of the turkish sultan bajazet, was delivered over to him at the head of an army against the turks, he chose rather to detain him in prison on consideration of an annual tribute from the turkish sultan." the story how the pope got possession of the turkish prince and refused , ducats ransom for him because he had received an offer of , from another party, reads like a story of professional brigandage. alexander vi, "the most depraved of all the popes, likewise recognized no loftier aim than to heap honors and possessions upon his five illegitimate children, and among them especially his favorite, caesar borgia." the nuptials celebrated for the pope's daughter lucretia--who, by the way, was a _divorcee_--were "by no means peculiarly decorous." the latin chronicler who has related them reports in this connection that the moral state of the clergy at rome was indescribably low. the example of the popes had set the pace for the rest. from the highest to the lowest each priest had his concubine as a substitute for married life (_"concubinas in figura matrimonii"_), and that, quite openly. the good chronicler remarks: "if god does not provide a restraint, this corruption will pass on to the monks and the religious orders; however, the monasteries of the city are nearly all become brothels already, and no one raises his voice against it." wading through the mephitic rottenness of these ancient chronicles, one is seized with nausea. holy things, religious privileges, had become merchandise with which the popes trafficked. the chronicler burchardus relates: "in those days the following couplet was sung in nearly the whole christian world: "vendit alexander claves, altaria, christum, emerat ista prius, vendere juste potest." the meaning of this satire is: alexander sells the power of the keys of heaven, the right to officiate at the altar, yea, christ himself; he had first bought these things himself, therefore he has a right to sell them again. unblushing perfidy was practised by this pope in his dealings with kings who were his religious subjects. in a quarrel with charles viii of france he threatened the king with excommunication, and sought aid from the turkish sultan. "however, when charles appeared in rome, the pope went over to his side immediately, and delivered up to him prince dschem; but he took care to have him poisoned immediately, that he might not lose the price set upon his head by the sultan." thus he conciliated the french monarch and filled his purse by one and the same act. "by traffic in benefices, sale of indulgences, exercise of the right of spoils, and taxes for the turkish war, as well as by the murder of rich or troublesome persons, alexander was seeking to scrape together as much money as possible to support the wanton luxury and shameful licentiousness of his court, and provide treasures for his children." in their correspondence men who had dealings with him would refer to him in such terms as these: "that monstrous head--that infamous beast!" ("_hoc monstruoso capite--hac infami belua!"_) "at length the poison which the pope had meant for a rich cardinal, in order to make himself master of his wealth, brought upon himself well-deserved death." the pope's butler had been bribed and exchanged the poison-cup intended for the pope's victim for the pope's cup, and the pope took his own medicine. on the basis of alegretti's notes, ranke has drawn a fine pen-picture of the reign of terror which caesar borgia, the favorite son of alexander vi, inaugurated at rome. "with no relative or favorite would caesar borgia endure the participation of his power. his own brother stood in his way: caesar caused him to be murdered and thrown into the tiber. his brother-in-law was assailed and stabbed, by his orders, on the steps of his palace. the wounded man was nursed by his wife and sister, the latter preparing his food with her own hands, to secure him from poison; the pope set a guard upon the house to protect his son-in-law from his son. caesar laughed these precautions to scorn. 'what cannot be done at noonday,' said he, 'may be brought about in the evening.' when the prince was on the point of recovery, he burst into his chamber, drove out the wife and sister, called in the common executioner, and caused his unfortunate brother-in-law to be strangled. toward his father, whose life and station he valued only as a means to his own aggrandizement, he displayed not the slightest respect or feeling. he slew peroto, alexander's favorite, while the unhappy man clung to his patron for protection, and was wrapped within the pontifical mantle. the blood of the favorite flowed over the face of the pope.--for a certain time the city of the apostles and the whole state of the church were in the hands of caesar borgia. . . . how did rome tremble at his name! caesar required gold, and possessed enemies. every night were the corpses of murdered men found in the streets, yet none dared move; for who but might fear that his turn would be next? those whom violence could not reach were taken off by poison. there was but one place on earth where such deeds were possible--that, namely, where unlimited temporal power was united to the highest spiritual authority, where the laws, civil and ecclesiastical, were held in one and the same hand." pope julius, who came into power after the twenty-six days' reign of pius iii, was a warlike man. "he engaged in the boldest operations, risking all to obtain all. he took the field in person, and having stormed mirandola, he pressed into the city across the frozen ditches and through the breach; the most disastrous reverses could not shake his purpose, but rather seemed to waken new resources in him." "he wrested perugia and bologna from their lords. as the powerful state of venice refused to surrender her conquests, he resolved at length, albeit unwillingly, to avail himself of foreign aid; he joined the league of cambrai, concluded between france and the emperor, and assisted with spiritual and temporal weapons to subdue the republic. venice, now hard pressed, yielded to the pope, in order to divide this overwhelming alliance. julius, already alarmed at the progress of the french in italy, readily granted his forgiveness, and now commenced hostilities against the french and their ally, alphonso, duke of ferrara. he declared that the king of france had forfeited his claim on naples, and invested ferdinand the catholic with the solo dominion of his realm. he issued a sentence of condemnation against the duke of ferrara. lewis xii strove in vain to alarm him by the national council of tours,--germany, by severe gravamina (complaints of national grievances against the papal see), and by the threat of the pragmatic sanction (an imperial order to confirm the decrees of such reform councils as that of basel). not even a general council, summoned at pisa by the two monarchs for the first of september, , with the dread phantom of a reform of the church, could bend the violent pope." the council of pisa the pope neutralized by convening a lateran council, which at the pope's bidding hurled its thundering manifestos in the name of the almighty against the pope's enemies. he died while this conflict was raging. luther was in rome while the pope was engaged as just related. what elements of appalling greed and levity had entered the holiest transactions of the church can be seen from the following summing up of the situation daring luther's time: "a large amount of worldly power was at this time conferred in most instances, together with the bishoprics; they were held more or less as sinecures according to the degree of influence or court favor possessed by the recipient or his family. the roman curia thought only of how it might best derive advantage from the vacancies and presentations; alexander extorted double annates or first-fruits, and levied double, nay, triple tithes; there remained few things that had not become matter of purchase. the taxes of the papal chancery rose higher from day to day, and the comptroller, whose duty it was to prevent all abuses in that department, most commonly referred the revision of the imposts to those very men who had fixed their amounts. for every indulgence obtained from the datary's office, a stipulated sum was paid; nearly all the disputes occurring at this period between the states of europe and the roman court arose out of these exactions, which the curia sought by every possible means to increase, while the people of all countries as zealously strove to restrain them. "principles such as these necessarily acted on all ranks affected by the system based on them, from the highest to the lowest. many ecclesiastics were found ready to renounce their bishoprics; but they retained the greater part of the revenues, and not unfrequently the presentation of the benefices dependent on them also. even the laws forbidding the son of a clergyman (!) to procure induction to the living of his father, and enacting that no ecclesiastic should dispose of his office by will (!), were continually evaded; for as all could obtain permission to appoint whomsoever he might choose as his coadjutor, provided he were liberal of his money, so the benefices of the church became in a manner hereditary. "it followed of necessity that the performance of ecclesiastical duties was grievously neglected. . . . in all places incompetent persons were intrusted with the performance of clerical duties; they were appointed without scrutiny or selection. the incumbents of benefices were principally interested in finding substitutes at the lowest possible cost; thus the mendicant friars were frequently chosen as particularly suitable in this respect. these men occupied the bishoprics under the title (previously unheard of in that sense) of suffragans; the cures they held in the capacity of vicars." (!) in order not to extend this review too long, we shall refer only to one other pope, leo x. it was in the main a prosperous reign that was inaugurated by leo x. a treaty was concluded with france, which had invaded italy. by a diplomatic maneuver the pragmatic sanction was annulled, and the lateran council was ordered to pronounce its death-warrant. france was humbled. "all resistance was vain against the alliance of the highest spiritual with the highest temporal power. now, at last, the papacy seemed once more to have quelled the hostile spirit which had grown up at constance and basel (two church councils which tried to reform the papacy, but failed), and found its stronghold in france, and at this very time it was near its most grievous fall." two years later luther, not fathoming as yet the depths of iniquity which he was beginning to lay bare, published his ninety-five theses. leo x is the pope that excommunicated luther. ranke describes the closing hours of his life. the pope had been extremely successful in his political schemes. "parma and placentia were recovered, the french were compelled to withdraw, and the pope might safely calculate on exercising great influence over the new sovereign of milan. it was a crisis of infinite moment: a new state of things had arisen in politics--a great movement had commenced in the church. the aspect of affairs permitted leo to flatter himself that he should retain the power of directing the first, and he had succeeded in repressing the second." (this refers to luther's protest; the pope was, of course, mistaken in the view that he had put a stop to luther's movement by excommunicating him.) "he was still young enough to indulge the anticipation of fully profiting by the results of this auspicious moment. strange and delusive destiny of man! the pope was at his villa of malliana when he received intelligence that his party had triumphantly entered milan; he abandoned himself to the exultation arising naturally from the successful completion of an important enterprise, and looked cheerfully on at the festivities his people were preparing on the occasion. he paced backward and forward till deep in the night, between the window and the blazing hearth--it was the month of november. somewhat exhausted, but still in high spirits, he arrived at rome, and the rejoicings there celebrated for his triumph were not yet concluded, when he was attacked by a mortal disease. 'pray for me,' said he to his servants, 'that i may yet make you all happy.' we see that he loved life, but his hour was come, he had not time to receive the sacrament nor extreme unction. so suddenly, so prematurely, and surrounded by hopes so bright! he died-'as the poppy fadeth.'" in the record of sanuto, who is witness for these events, there is a "lettera di hieronymo bon a suo barba, a di dec." which contains the following: "it is not certainly known whether the pope died of poison or not. he was opened. master fernando judged that he was poisoned, others thought not. of this last opinion is master severino, who saw him opened, and says he was not poisoned." (ranke, i, ff.; gieseler, iii, ff., at random.) out of such conditions grew luther's work. but on these conditions catholic critics of luther maintain a discreet--shall we not say, a guilty?--silence. few catholic laymen to whom the horrors of luther's life are painted with repulsive effect know the horrors which luther faced. they are only told that luther attacked "holy mother." they are not told that "holy mother" had become the harlot of the ages. . luther's birth and parentage. catholic writers make thorough work in explaining the reasons for luther's "defection" from rome. they apply to luther's stubborn resistance the law of heredity: luther's wildness was congenital. some have declared him the illegitimate child of a bohemian heretic, others, the oaf of a witch, still others, a changeling of beelzebub, etc. many of these writers, giving themselves the airs of painstaking investigators who have made careful research, repeat the tale of barbour, viz., that luther was born in the day-and-night room of an inn at eisleben. if this is so, luther's mother must have been a traveler on the day of her first confinement. if this were so, the fact could, of course, be easily explained without dishonor to luther's mother: she merely miscalculated the date of the birth of her first-born,--not an unusual occurrence. carlyle believed this story, but gave it an almost too honorable turn, by likening the inn at eisenach to the inn at bethlehem. but this story of luther's birth in a bar-room is not history; it belongs in the realm of mythology. nobody knows to-day the house where luther was born. preserved smith, his latest american biographer, says there is a house shown at eisleben as luther's birthplace, but it is "not well authenticated." (p. .) there is a bar and a restaurant in this particular building _now,_ for the accommodation of foreign visitors. it is possible that in this mythical birthplace of luther you can get a stein of foaming "monk's brew" or a "benedictine" from the monastery at fecamp, or a "chartreuse" from tarragona, distilled according to the secret formula of the holy fathers of la grande chartreuse. if you sip a sufficient quantity of these persuasive liquors, you will find it possible to believe most anything. and the blessing of the holy fathers who have prepared the beverages for your repast will be given you gratis in addition to their liquors. the journey of luther's mother to eisleben which compelled her to put up at an inn is, likewise, imaginary. melanchthon, luther's associate during the greater part of the reformer's life, investigated the matter and states that luther was born at his parents' home in eisenach during their temporary sojourn in that city, prior to their removal to mansfeld. these stories about the place and manner of luther's birth originated in the seventeenth century. they were unknown in luther's time. generations after a great man has died gossip becomes busy and begins to relate remarkable incidents of his life. lincoln did not say or do one half of the interesting things related about him. he has been drawn into that magical circle where myths are formed, because his great name will arouse interest in the wildest tale. that is what has happened to luther. these "myths" are an unconscious tribute to his greatness. one might let them pass as such and smile at them. but the catholic version of luther's birth is needed by their writers as a corollary to another "fact" which they have discovered about luther's father hans. hans luther, so their story runs, was a fugitive from justice at the time of his martin's birth. in a fit of anger he had assaulted or slain a man in his native village of moehra, and abandoning his small landholdings, he fled with his wife, who was in an advanced stage of pregnancy. color is lent to this story by the discovery that the luthers at moehra were generally violent folk. research in the official court-dockets at salzungen, the seat of the judicial district to which moehra belonged, shows that brawls were frequent in that village, and some luthers were involved in them. now follows the catholic deduction, plausible, reasonable, appealing, just like the "assumption" of mary: "out of the gnarly wood of this relationship, consisting mostly of powerful, pugnacious farmers, assertive of their rights, luther's father grew." this story was started in luther's lifetime. george wicel, who had fallen away from the evangelical faith, accused luther of having a homicide for a father. in , he published the story under a false name at paris, but gave no details. in moehra nothing was known of the matter until the first quarter of the twentieth century. this circumstance alone is damaging to the whole story. luther was during his lifetime exposed to scrutiny of his most private affairs as no other man. if wicel's tale could have been authenticated, we may rest assured that would have been done at the time. in the eighteenth century a mining official in thuringia by the name of michaelis told the story of hans luther's homicide with the necessary detail to make it appear real. observe, this was years after the alleged event. it had been this way: hans luther had quarreled with a person who was plowing his field, and had accidentally slain the man with the bridle, or halter, of his horse. several protestant writers now began to express belief in the story. travelers came to moehra for the express purpose of investigating the matter, _e.g.,_ mr. mayhew of the _london punch_. behold, the story had assumed definite shape through being kept alive a hundred years: the accommodating citizens of moehra were now able to point out to the inquiring englishman the very meadow where the homicide had taken place. it takes an englishman on the average two years and four months to see the point of a joke. by this time, we doubt not, it will be possible to exhibit to any confiding dunce the very horse-bridle with which hans luther committed manslaughter, also the actual hole which he knocked into the head of his victim, beautifully surrounded by a border of blue and green, which are the colors which the bruise assumed six hours after the infliction. the border may not be genuine, but we dare any catholic investigator to disprove the genuineness of the hole. writers belonging to a church that is rich in legends of the saints and in relics ought to know how a tale like wicel's can assume respectability and credibility in the course of time. it is not any more difficult to account for these tales about hans luther's homicide than for the existence in our late day of the rope with which judas hanged himself, or the tears which peter wept in the night of the betrayal, or the splinters from the cross of the lord, or the feathers from the wings of the angel gabriel, and sundry other marvels which are exhibited in catholic churches for the veneration of the faithful. no historian that has a reputation as a scholar to lose to-day credits the story of hans luther's homicide. it is improbable on its face. the small landholdings of hans at moehra are not real, but irreal estate. nobody has found the title for them. there is, however, a very good reason why hans should want to leave moehra. he was, according to all that is known of his father's family, the oldest son. according to the old thuringian law the home place and appurtenances of a peasant freeholder passed to the youngest son. mcgiffert regards the custom as "admirably careful of those most needing care." (p. .) luther's father, on coming of age, was by this law compelled to go and seek his fortune elsewhere, because opportunity for rising to independence there was none for him at moehra. if hans was a fugitive from justice, he was certainly unwise in not fleeing far enough. for at eisenach, whither he went, he was still under the same saxon jurisdiction as at moehra. he seems to have had no fear of abiding under the sovereignty which he is claimed to have offended. this observation has led one of the most exact and painstaking of modern biographers of luther, koestlin, to say that the homicide story, if it rests on any basis of fact, must either refer to a different luther, or if to hans, the incident cannot have been a homicide. it should be remembered that there is no authentic record which in any way incriminates hans luther. lastly, this homicide hans luther, eight years after coming to mansfeld, is elected by his fellow-townsmen one of the "vierherren," or aldermen, of the town. only most trusted and well-reputed persons were given such an office. a homicide would not have been allowed to settle at mansfeld, much less to govern the town. any rogue in the town that he had to discipline in his time of office would have thrown his bloody record up to him. a catholic writer says: "the wild passion of anger was an unextinguished and unmodified heritage transmitted congenitally to the whole luther family, and this to such an extent that the lutherzorn (luther rage) has attained the currency of a german colloquialism." mr. mayhew thinks that "martin was a veritable chip of the hard old block," the "high-mettled foal cast by a fiery blood-horse." catholic writers cite mr. mayhew as a distinguished protestant. if you have not heard of him before, look him up in _who is who?_ most anywhere. all this, however, is a desperate attempt to find proof against an assumed criminal by circumstantial evidence. no direct evidence has ever been available to implicate luther's father in a village brawl. as to the lutherzorn, luther has in scores of places explained the real reason of it: luther did not inherit, but rome roused it. this lutherzorn may arise in any person that is not remotely related to the luthers after reading catholic biographies of martin luther. . luther's great mistake. catholic writers contend that luther made a mistake when he became monk. protestants share this view, but put the emphasis in the sentence: luther became a monk, at a different place. in the protestant view the mistake is this, that luther became a _monk,_ in the catholic view, it is this, that _luther_ became a monk. protestants regard monasticism largely as a perversion of the laws of nature and of christian morals. in an institution of this kind luther could not find the relief he sought. his mistake was that he sought it there. catholics view monkery as the highest ideal of the christian life, and blame luther for entering this mode of life when he was altogether unfit for it. they regard luther as guilty of sacrilege far seeking admission into the order of augustinian friars. when he was permitted to turn monk, that which is holy was given unto a dog, and pearls were cast before a swine. catholics argue that luther's cheerless boyhood, the poverty of his parents, the hard work and close economy that was the order in the home at mansfeld, the harsh and cruel treatment which luther received from parents that were given to "fits of uncontrollable rage" induced in luther a morose, sullen spirit. he became brooding and stubborn when yet a child. he was a most unruly boy at school. his character was not improved when he was sent abroad for his education and had to sing for his bread or beg in the streets. his rebellious spirit found nourishment in these humiliations. owing to his melancholy temperament and gloomy fits, he made no friends. he felt himself misunderstood everywhere. even the little season of sunshine that came into his young life at the cotta home in eisenach did not cure him of the morbid feeling that nobody appreciated him. he began to loathe the studies which he was pursuing in accordance with the wish of his father. to certain occurrences, like the slaying of a fellow-student, an accident with which he met on a vacation trip, and a sudden thunderstorm, he gave an ominous interpretation which deepened his despondency. at last he determined, "inconsiderately and precipitately," to enter a cloister. his friends "instinctively felt he was not qualified or fitted for the sublime vocation to which he aspired, and they accordingly used all their powers to dissuade him from the course he had chosen. all their efforts were fruitless, and from the gayety and frolic of the banquet" which he had given his fellow-students as a farewell party "he went to the monastery." he was so reckless that he took this step even without the consent of his parents. "he knew little about the ways of god, and was not well informed of the gravity and responsibilities of the step he was taking." "he was not called by god to conventual life; . . . he was driven by despair, rather than the love of higher perfection, into a religious career." catholics feel so sure that they have a case against luther that in all seriousness they ask protestants the question: did he act honestly when he knelt before the prior asking to be received into the order? luther has later in life given various reasons for entering the monastery. his case was not simple, but complex. one reason, however, which he has assigned is the severe bringing up which he had at his home. hausrath is satisfied with this one reason, and many catholic writers adopt his view. but this remark of luther is evidently misapplied if it is made to mean that luther sought ease, comfort, leniency in the cloister as a relief from the hard life which he had been leading. luther had grasped the fundamental idea in monkery quite well: flight from the secular life as a means to become exceptionally holy. he sought quiet for meditation and devotion, but no physical ease and earthly comforts. he knew of the rigors of cloister-life. he willingly bowed to "the gentle yoke of christ"--thus ran the monkish ritual--which the life of an eremite among eremites was to impose on him. his hard life in the days of his boyhood and youth had been an unconscious preparation for this life. he had been strictly trained to fear god and keep his commandments. the holy life of the saints had been held up to him as far back as he could remember as the marvel of christian perfection. home and church had cooperated in deepening the impressions of the sanctity of the monkish life in him. when he saw the emaciated duke of anhalt in monk's garb with his beggar's wallet on his back tottering through the streets of magdeburg, and everybody held his breath at this magnificent spectacle of advanced christianity, and then broke forth in profuse eulogies of the princely pilgrim to the glories of monkish sainthood, that left an indelible impression on the fifteen-year-old boy. when he observed the carthusians at eisenach, weary and wan with many a vigil, somber and taciturn, toiling up the rugged steps to a heaven beyond the common heaven; when he talked with the young priests at the towns where he studied, and all praised the life of a monk to this young seeker after perfect righteousness; when in cloister-ridden erfurt he observed that the monks were outwardly, at least, treated with peculiar reverence, can any one wonder that in a mind longing for peace with god the resolve silently ripened into the act: i will be a monk? we, too, would call this an act of despair. we would say with luther: despair makes monks. but the despair which we mean, and which luther meant, is genuine spiritual despair. what catholics call luther's despair is really desperation, a reckless, dare-devil plunging of a criminal into a splendid catholic sanctuary. that luther's act decidedly was not. by rome's own teaching luther belonged in the cloister. that mode of life was originally designed to meet the needs of just such minds as his. his entering the monastery was the logical sequence of his previous catholic tutelage. rome has this monk on its conscience, and a good many more besides. as piety went in those days, luther had been raised a pious young man. he was morally clean. he was a consistent, yea, a scrupulous member of his church, regular in his daily devotions, reverencing every ordinance of the church. also during his student years he kept himself unspotted from the moral contaminations of the academic life. he abhorred the students who were devoted to king gambrinus and knight tannhaeuser. he loathed the taverns and brothels of erfurt. the cotta home was no _bierstube_ in his day. the banquet-hall where he met his friends the evening before he entered the cloister was no banquet-hall in the modern sense of the term. that he played the lute at this farewell party, and that there were some "honorable maidens" present, is nowadays related with a wink of the eye by catholics. but there was nothing wrong in all the proceedings of that evening. it was indeed an honorable gathering. luther was never a prudish man or fanatic. he loved the decent joys and pleasures of life. luther gathered his friends about him to take a decent leave of them. he did not run away from them secretly, as many monks have done. he opened up his mind to them at this last meeting. the conversation that ensued was a test of the strength of the convictions he had formed. his was an introspective nature. he had wrestled daily with the sin that ever besets us. he knew that with all his conventional religiousness he could not pass muster before god. over his wash-basin he was overheard moaning: "the more we wash, the more unclean we become." he felt like paul when he groaned: "o wretched man that i am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (rom. , .) he was sorrowing for his poor soul. he was hungering and thirsting for righteousness. "when will i ever attain to that state of mind that i am sure god is pleased with me?" he mused distractedly. what he could not find while engaged in his secular pursuits, that, he was told, the cloister could give him. to obtain that he entered the monastery. if ever rome had an honest applicant for monkery, luther is that man. nor did he act precipitately. as shown, the thought of this act had been quietly forming in him for years. when he made his rash vow to st. anna, he still allowed two weeks to pass before he put his resolution into action. try and picture to yourself his state of mind during those fourteen days! moving about in his customary surroundings, he was daily probing the correctness of his contemplated change of life. he fought a soul-battle in those days, and the remembrance of his father made that battle none the easier. from the catholic standpoint luther deserves an aureole for that struggle. after entering the cloister, he was still at liberty for a year and a half to retrace his fatal step. but his first impressions were favorable; monkery really seemed to bring him heart's ease and peace, and there was no one to disabuse his mind of the delusion. after nearly two years in the monastery, while sitting with his father at the cloister board on the event of his ordination to the priesthood, he declares to his father that he enjoys the quiet, contemplative life that he has chosen. surely, he made a mistake by becoming monk, but catholics cannot fault him for that mistake. if the life of monks and nuns is really what they claim that it is: the highest and most perfect form of christianity, they should consistently give any person credit for making the effort to lead that life. in fact, they ought all to turn monks and nuns to honor their own principles. . luther's failure as a monk. monasticism is a pagan shoot grafted on a christian tree. at its base lies the heathenish notion that sin can be extirpated by severe onslaughts upon the body and the physical life. it has existed in buddhism before some christians adopted it. in the early days of christianity it was proclaimed as superior wisdom by the platonic philosophers. like many a lie it has been decked out with bible-texts to give it respectability, and to soothe disquieted consciences. the scripture-sayings regarding fasting, sexual continence, chastity, crucifying the flesh, etc., are made to stand sponsor for this bastard offspring of the brain of christian mystics. with excellent discrimination mosheim has traced the origin of monasticism to the early christian fathers. the earliest impulses to monasticism are contained in such writings as the epistle to zenas, found among the writings of justinus, the tracts of clement of alexandria on calumny, patience, continence, and other virtues, the tracts of tertullian on practical duties, such as chastity, flight from persecution, fasting, theatrical exhibitions, the dress of females, prayer, etc. these writings "would be perused with greater profit, were it not for the gloomy and morose spirit which they everywhere breathe. . . . in what estimation they ought to be held, the learned are not agreed. some hold them to be the very best guides to true piety and a holy life; others, on the contrary, think their precepts were the worst possible, and that the cause of practical religion could not be committed to worse hands. . . . to us it appears that their writings contain many things excellent, well considered, and well calculated to kindle pious emotions; but also many things unduly rigorous, and derived from the stoic and academic philosophy; many things vague and indeterminate; and many things positively false, and inconsistent with the precepts of christ. if one deserves the title of a bad master in morals who has no just ideas of the proper boundaries and limitations of christian duties, nor clear and distinct conceptions of the different virtues and vices, nor a perception of those general principles to which recurrence should be had in all discussions respecting christian virtue, and therefore very often talks at random, and blunders in expounding the divine laws; though he may say many excellent things, and excite in us considerable emotion; then i can readily admit that in strict truth this title belongs to many of the fathers. . . . they admitted, with good intentions no doubt, yet most inconsiderately, a great error in regard to morals, and pernicious to christianity; an error which, through all succeeding ages to our times, has produced an infinity of mistakes and evils of various kinds. jesus, our savior, prescribed one and the same rule of life or duty to all his disciples. but the christian doctors, either by too great a desire of imitating the nations among whom they lived, or from a natural propensity to austerity and gloom, (a disease that many labor under in syria, egypt, and other provinces of the east,) were induced to maintain that christ had prescribed a twofold rule of holiness and virtue; the one ordinary, the other extraordinary; the one lower, the other higher; the one for men of business, the other for persons of leisure, and such as desired higher glory in the future world. they therefore early divided all that had been taught them either in books or by tradition, respecting a christian life and morals, into precepts and counsels. they gave the name precepts to those laws which were universally obligatory, or were enacted for all men of all descriptions; but the counsels pertained solely to those who aspire after superior holiness and a closer union with god. there soon arose, therefore, a class of persons who professed to strive after that extraordinary and more eminent holiness, and who, of course, resolved to obey the counsels of christ, that they might have intimate communion with god in this life, and might, on leaving the body, rise without impediment or difficulty to the celestial world. they supposed many things were forbidden to them which were allowed to other christians, such as wine, flesh, matrimony, and worldly business. they thought they must emaciate their bodies with watching, fasting, toil, and hunger. they considered it a blessed thing to retire to desert places, and by severe meditation to abstract their minds from all external objects, and whatever delights the senses. both men and women imposed these severe restraints on themselves, with good intentions, i suppose, but setting a bad example, and greatly to the injury of the cause of christianity. they were, of course, denominated ascetics, zealous ones, elect, and also philosophers; and they were distinguished from other christians, not only by a different appellation, but by peculiarities of dress and demeanor. those who embraced this austere mode of life lived indeed only for themselves, but they did not withdraw themselves altogether from the society and converse of men. but in process of time, persons of this description at first retired into deserts, and afterwards formed themselves into associations, after the manner of the essenes and therapeutae. "the causes of this institution are at hand. first, the christians did not like to appear inferior to the greeks, the romans, and the other people among whom there were many philosophers and sages, who were distinguished from the vulgar by their dress and their whole mode of life, and who were held in high honor. now among these philosophers (as is well known) none better pleased the christians than the platonists and pythagoreans, who are known to have recommended two modes of living, the one for philosophers who wished to excel others in virtue, and the other for people engaged in the common affairs of life. the platonists prescribed the following rule for philosophers: the mind of a wise man must be withdrawn, as far as possible, from the contagious influence of the body. and as the oppressive load of the body and social intercourse are most adverse to this design, therefore all sensual gratifications are to be avoided; the body is to be sustained, or rather mortified, with coarse and slender fare; solitude is to be sought for; and the mind is to be self-collected and absorbed in contemplation, so as to be detached as much as possible from the body. whoever lives in this manner shall in the present life have converse with god, and, when freed from the load of the body, shall ascend without delay to the celestial mansions, and shall not need, like the souls of other men, to undergo a purgation. the grounds of this system lay in the peculiar sentiments entertained by this sect of philosophers and by their friends, respecting the soul, demons, matter, and the universe. and as these sentiments were embraced by the christian philosophers, the necessary consequences of them were, of course, to be adopted also. "what is here stated will excite less surprise if it be remembered that egypt was the land where this mode of life had its origin. for that country, from some law of nature, has always produced a greater number of gloomy and hypochondriac or melancholy persons than any other; and it still does so. here it was long before the savior's birth, not only the essenes and therapeutae--those jewish sects, composed of persons with a morbid melancholy, or rather partially deranged--had their chief residence; but many others also, that they might better please the gods, withdrew themselves as by the instinct of nature from commerce with men and with all pleasures of life. from egypt this mode of life passed into syria and the neighboring countries, which in like manner always abounded with unsociable and austere individuals: and from the east it was at last introduced among the nations of europe. hence the numerous maladies which still deform the christian world; hence the celibacy of the clergy; hence the numerous herds of monks; hence the two species of life, the theoretical and mystical." (_eccles. hist.,_ i, f.) one may well feel pity for the original monks. their zeal was heroic, but it was spent upon an issue that is in its very root and core a haughty presumption and a lie. exhaust all the scripture-texts which speak of indwelling sin, of the lust that rages in our members, of the duty to keep the body under by fasting and vigilance, and there will not be found enough bible to cover the nakedness of the monastic principle. its fundamental thought of a select type of piety to be attained by spectacular efforts at self-mortification flies in the face of the doctrine that we are rid of sin and sanctified by divine grace alone. monkish holiness is a slander of the redeemer's all-sufficient sacrifice for sin and of the work of the holy spirit. it started in paganism, and wants to drag christianity back into paganism. but monasticism in luther's day was no longer of the sort which one may view with a pathetic interest. the old monastic ideals had been largely abandoned. instead of crucifying the flesh, the monks were nursing and fondling carnal-mindedness. the cloisters had become cesspools of corruption. because the reputation of monks was utterly bad, and monks were publicly scorned and derided, luther's friends tried to dissuade him from entering the cloister. that was the reason, too, why luther's father was so deeply shocked when he heard of what his martin had done, and luther had to assure his father that he had not gone into the herd of monks to seek what people believed men sought in that profligate company. for that reason, too, he had chosen the augustinian order, because a strong reform movement had been started in that order, and its reputation was better than that of the other orders. luther meant to be a monk of the original type. since the days of alexander of hales, albert the great, and thomas aquinas the roman church teaches that there is in the church a treasury of supererogatory works, that is, of good works which christ and the saints have performed in excess of what is ordinarily demanded of every man in the way of upright living. we shall meet with this idea again in another connection. it flows from the monastic principles. monks must have not only enough sanctity for their own needs, but to spare. of this superfluous sanctity they may make an assignment in favor of others. do not smile incredulously; monks actually make such assignments. luther may not have thought of this when he entered the cloister, but he rejoiced in this scheme of substitutive sanctity later. he thought he had found in monkery a gold-mine of holiness that would be sufficient not only for himself, but also for his parents. while at rome some years later, he was in a way sorry that his father and mother were not already in purgatory. he had such a fine chance there to accumulate supererogatory good works which he might have transferred to them to shorten their agonies, or release them entirely. in order to make a successful monk, one must be either a pharisee or an epicurean. the pharisee takes an inventory of the works named in the law of god, and sets out to perform these in an external, mechanical manner. he adds a few works of his own invention for good measure. every work performed counts; it constitutes merit. on the basis of his two pecks and a half of merit the pharisee now begins to drive a bargain with god: for so much merit he claims so much distinction and glory. he figures it all out to god, so that god shall not make a mistake at the time of the settlement: i have not been this, nor that, nor the other thing; i have done this, and that, and some more. consequently . . . ! the epicurean is a jolly fatalist. whatever is to happen will happen. why worry? go along at an even pace; eat, drink, be merry, but for heaven's sake do not take a serious or tragical view of anything! take things as they are; if you can improve them, well and good; if not, let it pass; forget it; eat a good meal and go to sleep. luther was never an epicurean. the seriousness of life had confronted him at a very early date. the sense of duty was highly developed in him from early youth. in all that he did he felt himself as a being that is responsible to his maker and judge. easy-going indifference and ready self-pity were not in his character. for this luther is now faulted by catholics. it is said he extended the rigors of monasticism beyond the bounds of reasonableness. he was too severe with himself. he outraged human nature. quite correct; but is not monasticism by itself an outrage upon human nature? luther had endured the monastery for the very purpose of enduring hardness. he did not flinch when the battle into which he had gone commenced in earnest. luther is said to have been tardy and neglectful in the observance of the rules of the order. sometimes he would omit the canonical hours, that is, the stated prayers, or some form of prescribed devotion, and then he would endeavor to make up for the loss by redoubled effort, which overtaxed his physical strength. quite true. it is not such a rare occurrence that a monk forgets the one or the other of the minutiae of the daily monkish routine. the regulations of his orders extended to such things as the posture which he must assume while standing, while sitting, while kneeling; the movement of his arms, of his hands; how to approach, how to move in front of the altar, how to leave it, etc. when his mind was engrossed with the study of the bible or some commentary of a church father, it was easy for luther to forget parts of the program which he was to carry out. whenever this happened, was it not his duty to endeavor to repair the damage? were not penances imposed on him in the confessional for every default? luther is said to have been led into still deeper gloom by his study of the doctrine of predestination. true, but even this study did not lead luther off into fatalism. it terrified him, because he studied that profound doctrine without a true perception of divine grace and the meaning of the redeemer's work. however, this study did not at any time permanently affect his vigorous striving after holiness. when catholics explain luther's failure as a monk by such assertions, they involve themselves in self-contradiction. by their own principles monkery is not a natural life; yet, when a monk fails in his monkery, they fault him for not being natural. first, they tell the applicant that he must not be what he is, and afterwards they blame him for wanting to be what they told him to be, and what he finds he cannot be. if this is not adding insult to injury, what is? francis of assisi became a great saint by that very inhuman treatment of himself for which luther is censured. but then francis of assisi did not quit his order and did not attack the pope. the other reason why luther failed is, because he could not make a pharisee of himself, which is only another name for hypocrite. the law of god had such a terrible meaning to him because he applied it as the lawgiver wants it applied, to his whole inner life, to the heart, the soul, the mind, and all his powers of intellect and will. it is comparatively easy to make the members of the body go through certain external performances, but to make the mind obey is a different proposition. the discovery which disheartened luther was, that while he was outwardly leading the life of a blameless monk, his inward life was not improved. sin was ever present with him, as it is with every human being. he felt the terrible smitings of the accusing conscience because he was keenly alive to the real demands of god's law. the holy law of god wrought its will upon him to the fullest extent: it roused him to anger with the god who had given this law to man; it led him into blasphemous thoughts, so that he recoiled with horror from himself. does the true law of god, when properly applied, ever have any other effect upon natural man? paul says: "it worketh wrath" (rom. , ), namely, wrath in man against god. it drives man to despair. that is its legitimate function: no person has touched the essence of the law who has not passed through these awful experiences. nor did any man ever flee from the law and run to christ for shelter but for these unendurable terrors which the law begets. that was luther's whole trouble, and that is why he failed as a monk: he had started out to become a saint, and he did not even succeed in making a pharisee of himself. if rome has produced a monk that succeeded better than luther, he ought to be exhibited and examined. he will be found either an angel or a brazen fraud. he will not be a true man. . professor luther, d. d. catholic writers greedily grab every opportunity to belittle luther's scholarship. incentives to study at home, they say, he received none. his common school education was wretched. during his high school studies he was favored with good teachers, but hampered by his home-bred roughness and uncouthness and his poverty. he applied himself diligently to his studies, but gave no sign of being a genius. at the university of erfurt, too, he was studious, but he seems to have made no great impression on the university. "he paid little attention to grammatical details, and never attained to ciceronian purity and elegance in speech and writing." when he made his a. b:, he ranked thirteenth in a class of fifty-seven. he did a little better in his effort for the title of a. m., when he came out second among seventeen candidates. but melanchthon is declared entirely wrong when he relates that luther was the wonder of the university. his theological studies preparatory to his entering the priesthood were very hasty and superficial. still less prepared was he for the work of a professor. his duties in the cloister left him little time for learned studies. yet he went to "bibulous wittenberg," to a little five-year-old university, and lectured "as best he could." by the way, our catholic friends seem to forget that "bibulous" wittenberg was a good old catholic town at the time. all things considered, luther's advancement was all too rapid; it was not justified by his preparatory studies, which had been "anything but deep, solid, systematic." "the theological culture he received was not on a par with that required now by the average seminarian, let alone a doctor of divinity." he accepted the title of d. d. very reluctantly, being conscious that he did not deserve it. a feeling of the insufficiency of his education tormented him all through life. "it cannot be denied that he was industrious, self-reliant, ambitious, but withal, he was not a methodically trained man. at bottom, he was neither a philosopher nor a theologian, and at no time of his life, despite his efforts to acquire knowledge, did he show himself more than superficially equipped to grapple with serious and difficult philosophical and religious problems. his study never rose to brilliancy." thus runs the catholic account of professor and doctor luther. we have not quoted the worst catholic estimates of luther's scholarship. he has also been called a dunce, an ignoramus, a barbarian. again it seems to escape the catholics that this ill-trained, insufficient, half-baked doctor of divinity is a product of their own educational art. whatever advancement he received in those days was actually forced upon him by catholics. all his academic and ecclesiastical honors came from catholic sources, came to him, moreover, as a good catholic. also that highest and noblest distinction which made him a duly called and accredited expounder of the holy scriptures. if there is fault to be found with anything in this matter, it lies with the catholic method and process of making a young man within the space of ten years a bachelor of arts, a master of arts, a priest, a professor, and a doctor of sacred theology; it does not lie with the innocent subject to whom this presto! change! process was applied. but does this estimate of luther square with the facts in the case? for a dunce or a mediocre scholar luther has been a fair success. his little ability and scanty preparation makes his achievements all the more remarkable. the most brilliant minds of the race, for whom the home, the church and the state, religion, science and art, had done their best, have accomplished immeasurably less than this poor and mostly self-taught country boy. god give his church many more such dunces! the net results of luther's learning are open to inspection by the world in his numerous works. able scholars of most recent times have looked into luther's writings with a view of determining how much learned knowledge he had actually acquired, even before he began his reformatory work, they have found that luther was "very well versed in the favorite latin authors of the day: vergil, terence, ovid, aesop, cicero, livy, seneca, horace, catullus, juvenal, silius, statius, lucan, suetonius, sallust, quintilian, varro, pomponius mela, the two plinies, and the _germania_ of tacitus." he possessed a creditable amount of knowledge of general history and church history. he had made a profound study of the leading philosophers and scholastic theologians of the middle ages: thomas of aquinas, peter lombard, bernard of clairvaux, duns scotus, occam, gregory of rimini, pierre d'ailly, gerson, and biel. two of these he knew almost by heart. he had studied the ancient church fathers: irenaeus, cyprian, eusebius, athanasius, hilary, ambrose, gregory of nanzianzen, jerome, and such later theologians as cassiodorus, gregory the great, and anselm of canterbury; tauler, lefevre, erasmus, and pico della mirandola. "he was quite at home in the exegetical middle ages, in the canon law, in aristotle and porphyry." "he was one of the first german professors to learn greek and hebrew." moreover, luther possessed, besides knowledge, those indispensable requisites in a good professor: "the faculty of plain, clear, correct, and independent thought, resourcefulness, acumen" (boehmer, p. f.). he had the courage to tell the church that it was a shame, that a heathen philosopher, aristotle, should formulate the doctrines which christians are to believe and their pastors are to teach. he threw this heathen, who had for ages dominated christian teaching, out of his lecture-room, and took his students straight to the pure fountain of religious truth, the word of god. he publicly burned the canon law by which the roman church had forged chains for the consciences of men, and which she upholds to this day. his lecture-room became crowded with eager and enthusiastic students, and the stripling university planted on the edge of civilization in the sands along the elbe became for a while the religious and theological hub of the world. the students who gathered about luther knew that they had a real professor in him. the world of his day came to this fledgling doctor with the weightiest questions, and received answers that satisfied. that part of the intelligent world of to-day which has read and studied luther endorses the verdict of luther's contemporaries as regards his ample learning and proficiency as a teacher. more learned men, indeed, than luther there have been. some of these have also made attempts to introduce needed reforms in the corrupt roman church. rome met their learned and labored arguments with the consummate skill of a past master in sophistry. those learned efforts came to naught. rome will never be reformed by human learning and scholarship. scholars are rarely men of action. it is because professor luther taught _and acted_ that rome hates him. he would have been permitted to lecture in peace whatever he wished--others in the universities were doing that at the time--if he had only been careful not to do anything, at least not publicly, against the authority of the church. that was the unpardonable blunder of luther that he wanted to live as he believed, and that he taught others to do the same. for this reason he is a dullard, an ignoramus, a poor scholar, a poor writer, in a word, an inferior person from a literary and scholarly point of view. in numbers (chap. ) there is a story told of the prophet balaam, who went out on a wicked mission for which a great reward had been promised him. he rode along cheerfully, feasting his avaricious heart on the great hoard he would bring back, when suddenly the ass that bore him balked. the prophet began to beat the animal, but it did not budge an inch. all at once this dunce of an ass which had never been put through a spelling-book began to talk and remonstrated with the prophet: "am i not thine ass? what have i done unto thee that thou hast smitten me?" to his amazement the prophet was able to understand the ass quite well. this dumb brute made its meaning plain to a learned man. it was an intolerable outrage that an ass should lecture a doctor, and balk him in his designs. luther is that ass. rome rode him, and he patiently bore his wicked master until the angel of the lord stopped him and he would go no further. the only difference is that balaam had his eyes opened, left off beating his ass, and felt sorry for what he had done. rome's eyes have not been opened for four hundred years. it is still beating the poor ass. it does not see the lord who has blocked her path and said, you shall go no further! in kings, chap. , there is another story told of the syrian captain naaman, who came to be healed of his leprosy by the prophet elijah. with his splendid suite the great statesman drove up in grand style to the prophet's cottage. he expected that the holy man would come out to meet him, and very deferentially engage to do the great lord's bidding. the prophet did not even come out of his hut, but sent naaman word to go and wash seven times in jordan and he would be cleansed. now naaman flew into a rage, because the prophet had, in the first place, not even deigned to speak to him, and, secondly, had ordered a ridiculously commonplace cure for him. he stormed that he would do no such thing as wash in that old jordan river. he had better waters at home. let the prophet keep his old jordan for such as he was. and he rode off in great dudgeon. rome is the leprous gentleman, and luther is the man of god who told her how to become clean. the only difference is this: naaman listened to wise counsel, and finally did what he had been told to do, and was cleansed. rome disdains to this day to listen to the ill-bred son of a peasant, the theological upstart luther, and remains as filthy as she has been. . luther's "discovery" of the bible. since luther's study of the bible has been referred to several times in these pages, it is time that the righteousness of a certain indignation be examined which catholic writers display. they pretend to be scandalized by the tale that in luther's time the bible was such a rare book that it was practically unknown. with the air of outraged innocence some of them rise to protest against the stupid myth that luther "discovered" the bible. they claim that their church had been so eager to spread the bible, and had published editions of the bible in such rapid succession, that in luther's age christian europe was full of bibles. moreover, that age, they tell us, was an age of intense bible-study. not only the theologians, but also the laymen, not only the wealthy and highly educated, but also the common people, had unhindered access to the bible. the historical data for rome's alleged zeal in behalf of the bible these catholic writers gather largely from protestant authors. for greater effect they propose to buttress, with the fruits of the laborious research of protestants, their charge that luther's ignorance of the bible was self-inflicted and really inexcusable. what are the facts in the case? the whole account which we possess of luther's "discovery" of the bible is contained in luther's table talk. ( , .) this is a book which luther did not personally compose nor edit. it is a collection of sayings which his guests noted down while at meat with luther, or afterwards from memory. from a casual remark during a meal mathesius obtained the information which he published in his biography of luther, _viz.,_ that, when twenty-two years old, luther one day had found the bible in a library at erfurt. now, we do not wish to question the general credibility of the table talk, nor the authenticity of this particular remark of luther about his stumbling upon the bible by accident. but it is certainly germane to our subject to strip the incident of the dramatic features with which catholic writers claim that most protestants still surround the event. did luther say, and did mathesius report, that up to the year he had not known of the bible? not at all. he merely stated that up to that time he had not seen _a complete copy of the bible_. luther himself has told scores of times that when a schoolboy at mansfeld, and later at magdeburg and eisenach where he studied, he had heard portions of the gospels and epistles read during the regular service at church. some passages he had learned by heart. luther's guests would have laughed at him if he had claimed such a "discovery" of the bible as catholic writers--and some of their protestant authorities--think that mathesius has claimed for him and modern protestants still credit him with. what luther did relate we are prepared to show was not, and could not be, an unusual occurrence in those days. "even in the university of paris, which was considered the mother and queen of all the rest, not a man could be found, when luther arose, competent to dispute with him out of the scriptures. this was not strange. many of the doctors of theology in those times had never read the bible. carolostadt expressly tells us this was the case with himself. whenever one freely read the bible, he was cried out against, as one making innovations, as a heretic, and exposing christianity to great danger by making the new testament known. many of the monks regarded the bible as a book which abounded in numerous error." (mosheim, iii, .) the spiritual atmosphere in which luther and all christians of his time were brought up was unfavorable to real bible-study. but before we exhibit the true attitude of rome toward the bible, it will be necessary to examine the catholic claim regarding the extensive dissemination and the intensive study of the bible among the people in and before luther's times. before the age of printing one cannot speak, of course, of "editions" of the bible. the earliest date for the publication of a printed edition of the bible is probably -- twenty-three years before luther's birth. that was an event fully as momentous as the opening of the transatlantic cable in our time. before printing had been invented, the bible was multiplied by being copied. that was a slow process. even when a number of copyists wrote at the same time to dictation, it was a tedious process, requiring much time, and not very many would join in such a cooperative effort of bible production. besides, few men in those early ages were qualified for this work. a certain degree of literary proficiency was required for the task. the centuries during which the papacy rose to the zenith of its power are notorious for the illiteracy of the masses. it was considered a remarkable achievement even for a nobleman to be able to scribble his name. among those who possessed the ability few had the inclination and persistency necessary for the effort to transcribe the bible. the cloisters of those days were the chief seats of learning and centers of lower education, but even these asylums of piety sheltered many an ignorant monk and others who were afflicted with the proverbial monks' malady--laziness. it is to the credit of the pious members of the roman church in that unhappy age that they manifested such a laudable interest in the bible. the achievement of copying the entire bible with one's own hand in that age is so great that it palliates some of the glaring evils of the inhuman system of monasticism. but if every monk in every cloister, every priest in every catholic parish, every professor in every catholic university, could have produced twenty copies of the bible during his lifetime, how little would have been accomplished to make the bible available for the millions of men then living! reading is the correlate of writing. the person who cannot write, as a rule, cannot read. for this reason the bible must have remained a sealed book to many who had ample opportunity to become acquainted with it. the wide diffusion of bible knowledge which catholic writers would lead us to believe always existed in the roman church is subject to question. it is true that in the first centuries of the christian era there was a great hunger and thirst for the word of god. but that was before the roman church came into existence. for it is a reckless assumption that the papacy is an original institution in the church of christ, and that roman catholicism and christianity are identical. it is also true that in the early days of the reformation the people manifested a great desire for the word of god. it was as new to them as it had been to luther. they would crowd around a person who was able to read, and would listen for hours. at st. paul's in london public reading of the bible became a regular custom. but between the early days of christianity and the beginning of the reformation lies a period which. is known as the dark ages. no amount of oratory will turn that age into a bright age. "from the seventh to the eleventh century books were so scarce that often not one could be found in an entire city, and even rich monasteries possessed only a single text-book." (_universal encycl.,_ , .) these conditions were not greatly improved until printing was invented. luther had to do with people who were emerging from the sad conditions of that age, the effects of which were still visible centuries after. he writes: "the deplorable destitution which i recently observed, during a visitation of the churches, has impelled and constrained me to prepare this catechism, or christian doctrine, in such a small and simple form. alas, what manifold misery i beheld! the common people, especially in the villages, know nothing at all of christian doctrine; and many pastors are quite unfit and incompetent to teach. yet all are called christians, have been baptized, and enjoy the use of the sacraments, although they know neither the lord's prayer, nor the creed, nor the ten commandments, and live like the poor brutes and irrational swine." (preface to the small catechism.) remember, these people lived in that age when luther was born and grew up, which catholic writers picture to us as a bible-knowing and bible-loving age. the invention of printing wrought a mighty change in this respect. this glorious art became hallowed from the beginning by being harnessed for service to the bible. but even this invention did not at once remove the prevailing ignorance. we must not transfer modern conditions to the fifteenth century. in , one of the many protestant bible societies reported that it had disposed in one year of nearly , , bibles and parts of the bible in many languages. the bible is perhaps the cheapest book of modern times. it was not so in the days of gutenberg, froschauer, luft, and the claxtons. even after printing had been invented, bibles sold at prices that would be considered prohibitive in our day. when the duke of anhalt ordered three copies of the bible printed on parchment, he was told that for each copy he must furnish calf-skins, and the expense would be sixty gulden. (luther's works, b, .) but even the low-priced editions of the bible, printed on common paper (which was not introduced into europe until the thirteenth century), cost a sum of money which a poor man would consider a fortune, and which even the well-to-do would hesitate to spend in days when money was scarce and its purchasing power was considerably different from what it is to-day. at a period not so very remote from the present a bible was considered a valuable chattel of which a person would dispose by a special codicil in his will. for generations bibles would thus be handed down from father to son, not only because of the sacred memories that attached to them as heirlooms, but also because of their actual value in money. everything considered, then, we hold the argument that the bible was a widely diffused book in the days before luther to be historically untrue, because it implies physical impossibilities. with the magnificent printing and publishing facilities of our times, how many persons are still without the bible? how many parishioners in all the catholic churches of this country to-day own a bible? the modern bible societies are putting forth an energy in spreading the bible that is unparalleled in history. still their annual reports leave the impression that all they accomplish is as a drop in the bucket over and against the enormous bible-need still unsupplied. catholic writers paint the bible-knowledge of the age before luther in such exceedingly bright colors that one is led to believe that age surpassed ours. they overshoot their aim. nobody finds fault with the roman church for not having invented the printing-press. all would rather be inclined to excuse her little achievement in spreading the bible during the middle ages on the ground of the poor facilities at her command. every intelligent and fair person will accord the roman church every moiety of credit for the amount of bible-knowledge which she did convey to the people. we heartily join luther in his belief that even in the darkest days of the papacy men were still saved in the roman church, because they clung in their dying hour to simple texts of the scriptures which they had learned from their priests. ( , .) but no one must try and make us believe that the roman church before luther performed marvels in spreading the bible. she never exhausted even the poor facilities at her command. far from wondering, then, that luther had not seen the complete bible until his twenty-second year, we regard this as quite natural in view of his lowly extraction, and we consider the censure which superficial protestant writers have applied to luther because of his early ignorance of the bible as uncommonly meretricious. when we bear in mind the known character of the popes in luther's days, we doubt whether even they had read the entire bible. luther's "discovery" of the bible, however is not regarded by protestants as a discovery such as columbus made when he found the american continent. luther knew of the existence of the bible and could cite sayings of the bible at the time when he found the bulky volume in the library that made such a profound impression upon him. and yet his find was a true discovery. luther discovered that his church had not told him many important and beautiful things that are in the bible. he became so absorbed with the novel contents of this wonderful book that the desire was wrung from his: heart: oh, that i could possess this book! but this enthusiastic wish at once became clouded by another discovery which he made while poring over the precious revelation of the very heart of jesus: his church had told him things differently from what he found them stated in the bible. he was shocked when he discovered that in his heart a new faith was springing up which had come to him out of the bible,--a faith which contradicted the avowed faith of the roman church. poor luther! he had for the first time come under the influence of that word which is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow (hebr. , ), and he did not know it. some of the noblest minds in the ages before him have had to pass through the same experience. with the implicit trust which at that time lie reposed in the roman church, luther suppressed his "heretical" thoughts. he said: "perhaps i am in error. dare i believe myself so smart as to know better than the church?" (hausrath, , .) yes, luther had really discovered the bible, namely, the bible which the roman church never has been, and never will be, willing to let the people see while she remains what she is to-day. this "discovery"-tale which so offends catholic writers could be verified in our day. let catholic writers put into the hands of every catholic of america the true, genuine, unadulterated word of god, without any glosses and comment, and let them watch what is going to happen. there will be astonishing "discoveries" made by the readers, and those discoveries will be no fabrications. . rome and the bible. catholic writers claim for the roman church the distinction which at one time belonged to the hebrews, that of being the keepers of the oracles of god. they claim that to the jealous vigilance of the roman church over the sacred writings of christianity the world to-day owes the bible. the pagan emperors of rome would have destroyed the bible in the persecutions which they set on foot against the early christians, if the faithful martyrs had not refused to surrender their sacred writings. again, the roman church is represented as the faithful custodian of the bible during the political and social upheaval that wrecked the roman empire when the barbarian peoples of the north overran rome and greece. only through the care of the roman church the bible is said to have been saved from destruction in the general confusion. the reasoning of catholics on this matter is specious. in the first place, the early christian martyrs were not roman catholics. the claim of the roman church that the papacy starts with peter is a myth. in the second place, much patient labor has been expended in the last centuries to collate existing manuscripts of the bible for the purpose of removing errors that had crept into the text and making the original text of the bible as accurate as it is possible to make it. in these labors mostly protestants were engaged. fell, mill, kuster, bengel, wetzstein, griesbach, lachmann, tischendorf, tregelles, westcott and hort, have through three centuries of untiring research cooperated in placing before the world the authentic text of the bible. to-day we have not a single one of the autograph manuscripts of the gospels and epistles of the new testament. if the roman church existed in the days when matthew, mark, luke, john, paul, peter, jude, and james wrote, and if she exercised such scrupulous care over the bible, why has she not preserved a single one of these invaluable documents? we suggest this thought only in view of the unfounded catholic boast; we do not charge the catholic church with a crime for having permitted the autographs of our bible to become lost, we only hold that the catholic church is not entitled to the eulogies which her writers bestow upon her. even the condition of the copies that were made from the autograph writings of the apostles does not speak well for the care which the roman church took of the bible, assuming, of course, that she existed in those early centuries. "it is evident that the original purity (of the new testament text) was early lost. . . . irenaeus (in the second century) alludes to the differences between the copies. . . . origen, early in the third century, expressly declares that matters were growing worse. . . . from the fourth century onward we have the manuscript text of each century, the writings of the fathers, and the various oriental and occidental versions, all testifying to varieties of readings." (_new schaff-herzog encycl.,_ ii, .) our sole purpose in calling attention to this fact, which every scholar to-day knows, is, to bring the fervor of catholic admiration for the bible-protecting and bible-preserving church of rome somewhat within the bounds of reason. we do not charge the roman church with having corrupted the text, but if the claim of catholics as to the age of their church is correct, every corruption in the copies that were made from the original documents occurred while she was exercising her remarkable custodianship over the bible. that officials of the church, especially as we approach the middle ages, had something to do with corrupting the sacred text is the belief of the authority just quoted. "the early church," he says, "did not know anything of that anxious clinging to the letter which characterizes the scientific rigor and the piety of modern times, and therefore was not bent upon preserving the exact words. moreover, the first copies were made rather for private than for public use." not a few were found in sarcophagi; they had been buried with their owners. "copyists were careless, often wrote from dictation, and were liable to misunderstand. attempted improvements of the text in grammar and style; efforts to harmonize the quotations in the new testament with the greek of the septuagint, but especially to harmonize the gospels; the writing out of abbreviations; incorporation of marginal notes in the text; the embellishing of the gospel narratives with stories drawn from non-apostolic, though trustworthy, sources,--it is to these that we must attribute the very numerous 'readings' or textual variations. it is true that the copyists were sometimes learned men; but their zeal in making corrections may have obscured the true text as much as the ignorance of the unlearned. the copies, indeed, came under the eye of an official reviser, but he may have sometimes exceeded his functions, and done more harm than good by his changes." all this happened while the roman church, according to catholic writers, was keeper of the bible. the honor which these writers assert for their church is spurious. if there is any class of men for whom the glory must be vindicated of having given to the world the pure word of god in a reliable text, it is the band of textual, or lower, critics who have gathered and collated all existing manuscripts of the bible. what an immense amount of painstaking labor this necessitated the reader can guess from the fact that for the new testament alone about , manuscripts had to be examined word for word and letter for letter. the men who undertook this gigantic task, arid who are always on the watch for new finds, do not belong in the roman fold, and did not receive the incentive for their work from the roman church. this work started soon after the reformation, and the intense interest aroused in god's word by that movement is the true cause of it. the protestant church, not the church of rome, has given back to the world the pure word of god in more than one sense. the official bible of the roman church to-day is the latin vulgate. this bible, which is a revision by jerome and others of many variant latin texts in use towards the end of the fourth century, has been elevated to the dignity of the inspired text. the original purpose was good: it was to remove the confusion of many conflicting texts and to establish uniformity in quoting the bible. the errors of the vulgate are many, but while it was understood that the vulgate was merely a translation, the errors could be corrected from the original sources. little, however, was done in this respect before the reformation, and since then the roman church has become rigid and petrified in its adherence to this latin bible. in its fourth session (april , ) the council of trent decreed that "of all latin editions the old and vulgate edition be held as authoritative in public lectures, disputations, sermons, and expositions; and that no one is to dare or presume under any pretext to reject it." "the meaning of this decree," says hodge, "is a matter of dispute among romanists themselves. some of the more modern and liberal of their theologians say that the council simply intended to determine which among several latin versions was to be used in the service of the church. they contend that it was not meant to forbid appeal to the original scriptures, or to place the vulgate on a par with them in authority. the earlier and stricter romanists take the ground that the synod did intend to forbid an appeal to the hebrew and greek scriptures, and to make the vulgate the ultimate authority. the language of the council seems to favor this interpretation." we might add, the practise of romanists, too. at the debate in leipzig eck contended that the latin vulgate was inspired by the holy ghost. (koestlin, i, .) whatever knowledge of scripture the people in the middle ages possessed was confined to those who could read latin. catholic writers claim this was at that time the universal language of europe, but they wisely add: "among the educated." one of them says: "those who could read latin could read the bible, and those who could not read latin could not read anything." exactly. and now, to prove the wide diffusion of bible-knowledge in their church before luther, these catholic writers should give us some exact data as to the extent of the latin scholarship in that age. fact is, the latin tongue acted as a lock upon the scriptures to the common people. hence arose the desire to have the bible translated into the vernacular of various european countries. this desire rome sought to suppress with brutal rigor. the bloody persecutions of the waldensians in france, which almost resulted in the extirpation of these peaceful mountain people, of the followers of wyclif in england, whose remains rome had exhumed after his death and burned, of the hussites in bohemia, were all aimed at translations of the bible into the languages which the common people understood. in july, , pope innocent iii issued a breve, occasioned by the report that parts of the bible were found in french translation in the diocese of metz. the breve praises in a general way the zeal for bible-study, but applies to all who are not officially appointed to engage in such study the prohibition in ex. , . , not to touch the holy mountain of the law. during the reign of his successor, honorius iii, in , laymen in germany were forbidden to read the bible. under gregory ix the same prohibition was issued, in , to laymen in great britain. in the same year the crusades against the albigenses were concluded, and the council of toulouse issued a severe order, making it a grave offense for a layman to possess a bible. in , the synod of tarragona demanded the immediate surrender of all translations of the bible for the purpose of having them burned. in , the synod of baziers issued a prohibition forbidding laymen to possess any theological books whatsoever, and even enjoining the clergy from owning any theological books written in the vernacular. eleven years after luther's death, in , pope paul iv published the roman index of forbidden books, and, with certain exceptions, prohibited laymen from reading the bible. not until the reign of king edward vi was the "act inhibiting the reading of the old and new testament in english tongue, and the printing, selling, giving, or delivering of any such other books or writings as are therein mentioned and condemned" (namely, in hen. viii. cap. ) abrogated. the council of trent ordered all catholic publishers to see to it that their editions have the approval of the respective bishop. not until february , , did pope clement xiii give permission to translate the bible _into all the languages of the catholic states_. not until november , , did pope leo xiii issue an encyclical enjoining upon catholics the study of the bible, always, however, _in editions approved by the roman church_. (kurtz, _kirchengesch_. ii, , . ; _univers. encycl_., under title "bible"; peter heylyn, _ecclesia restaurata_ i, ; denzinger, _enchiridion,_ . . . .) catholic writers seek to make a great impression in favor of their church by enumerating, on the authority of protestant scholars, the number of german translations of the bible that are known to have been in existence before luther. but they omit to inform the public that not a single one of those translations obtained the approbation of a bishop. one cannot view but with a pathetic interest these sacred relies of an age that was hungering for the word of god. the origin of these early german bibles has been traced by scholars to wycliffite and hussite influences, which rome never stamped out, though her inquisitors tried their best to do so. the earliest of these bibles do not state the place nor the year of publication. can the reader guess why? they were not published at the seat of the german archbishop, mainz, but most of them at the free imperial city of augsburg. can the reader suggest a reason? many of them are printed in abnormally small sizes, facilitating quick concealment. can the reader imagine a cause for this phenomenon? in these old german bibles particular texts are emphasized, for example, rom. , ; cor. , ; cor. , ; , ; pet. , ; , ; , ; acts , . ; , ; , ; , . if the reader will take the trouble to look up these texts, he will find that they warn christians to be prepared to be persecuted for their faith. has the reader ever heard of such an officer of the roman church as the inquisitor, one of whose duties it was to hunt for bibles among the people? in places these old german bibles contain significant marginal glosses, for example, at tim. , one of them has this gloss: "_ain_ mitler christus, ach merk!" that is: _one_ mediator, christ--note this well! in , archbishop berchtold of mainz, primate of germany, issued an edict, full of impassioned malice against german translations of the bible, and against laymen who sought edification from them. he says that "no prudent person will deny that there is need of many supplements and explanations from other writings" than the bible, to the end, namely, that a person may construe from the german bibles the true catholic faith. fact is, that faith is not in the bible. this happened three years after the birth of luther. (kurtz, ii, , .) instead of finding fault, then, with luther's ignorance of the bible prior to , we feel surprised that the young man knew as much of the bible as he did. he must in this respect have surpassed many in his age. the roman church does not permit her laymen to read a bible that she has not published with annotations. "believing herself to be the divinely appointed custodian and interpreter of holy writ," says a writer in the _catholic encyclopedia_ (ii, ), "she cannot, without turning traitor to herself, approve the distribution of scripture 'without note or comment.'" for this reason the roman church has cursed the bible societies which early in the eighteenth century began to be formed in protestant churches, and aimed at supplying the poor with cheap bibles. in , pope pius vii anathematized all bible societies, declaring them "a pest of christianity," and renewed the prohibition which his predecessors had issued against translations of the bible. (kurtz, ii, , .) leo xii, on may , , in the encyclical _ubi primum,_ said: "ye are aware, venerable brethren, that a certain bible society is impudently spreading throughout the world, which, despising the traditions of the holy fathers and the decree of the council of trent, is endeavoring to translate, or rather to pervert, the scriptures into the vernacular of all nations. . . . it is to be feared that by false interpretation the gospel of christ will become the gospel of men, or, still worse, the gospel of the devil." pius ix, on november , , in the encyclical _qui pluribus,_ said: "these crafty bible societies, which renew the ancient guile of heretics, cease not to thrust their bible upon all men, even the unlearned--their bibles, which have been translated against the laws of the church and after certain false explanations of the text. thus the divine traditions, the teaching of the fathers, and the authority of the catholic church are rejected, and every one in his own way interprets the words of the lord, and distorts their meaning, thereby falling into miserable error." (_cath. encycl_. ii, .) the writer whom we have just quoted says: "the fundamental fallacy of private interpretation of the scriptures is presupposed by the bible societies." these papal pronunciamentos arc directed chiefly against the canstein bibelgesellschaft and her later sisters, such as the berliner bibelgesellschaft, and against the british and american bible societies. the face of the roman church is sternly set against the plain text of the scriptures. to defeat the meaning of the original text, she not only mutilates the text and adds glosses which twist the meaning of the text into an altogether different meaning, but she declares that the bible is not the only source from which men must obtain revealed truth. alongside of the bible she places an unwritten word of god, her so-called traditions. these, she claims, are divine revelations which were handed down orally from generation to generation. the early fathers and the councils of the church referred to them in defining the true doctrine and prescribing the correct practise of the church. nobody has collected these traditions, and nobody will. but to what extent the roman church operates with them, is well known. speaking of learned bible-study in the middle ages, mosheim says: "nearly all the theologians were _positivi_ and _sententiarii_ [that is, they taught what the church ordered to be taught], who deemed it a great achievement, both in speculative and practical theology, either to overwhelm the subject with a torrent of quotations from the fathers, or to anatomize it according to the laws of dialectics [that is, the laws of reasoning, logic]. and whenever they had occasion to speak of the meaning of any text, they appealed invariably to what was called the _glossa ordinaria_ [that is, the official explanation], and the phrase _glossa dicit_ (the gloss says), was as common and decisive on their lips as anciently the phrase _ipse dixit_ (he, viz., the teacher, has said) in the pythagorean school." (iii, .) in his controversies with the theologians of rome, luther found that they were constantly wriggling out of the plain text of the bible and running for shelter to the traditions, to the fathers, to the decrees of councils of the church. at the council of trent some one rose to inquire whether all the traditions recognized as genuine by the church could not be named; he was told that he was out of order. (pallavivini, vi, , ; , .) hase has invited the roman church to say whether all the traditions are now known. he has not been answered. (_protest. polem_., p. .) if romanists answer: yes, the reasonable request will be made of them to publish those traditions once for all time, in order that men may know all that god is supposed to have really said to men that is not in the bible. if they answer: no, the conclusion is inevitable that the christian faith is an uncertain thing. any tradition may bob up that upsets a part of the creed. add to this the dogma of papal infallibility, promulgated july , , which asserts for the pope "the entire plenitude of supreme power" to determine the faith and morals of christians, and we have reached a point where it becomes plain to any thoughtful person that the bible is, from the catholic view-point, not at all such a necessary book as men have believed. nor can the faith of a romanist be a fixed and stable quantity. any papal deliverance may bring about a change, and the conscientious catholic must study the news from the vatican with the same vital interest as the merchant studies the market reports in his morning paper, and a very pertinent question that he may ask his wife over his coffee at the breakfast table would be, "wife, what do we believe to-day?" . luther's visit at rome. catholic writers ask the world not to believe luther's tales about the city of rome. luther, they say, came to rome as a callow rustic comes to a metropolis. to the wily italians he was german innocence abroad; they hoaxed him by telling him absurd tales about the popes, the priests, the wonders of the city, etc., and the credulous monk believed all they told him. he left rome with his faith in the church unimpaired. later in life, after his "defection" from rome, he told as true facts and as reminiscences of his visit at the holy city many of the false stories which had been palmed off on him. this is said to have given rise to the prevailing protestant view that during his visit at rome luther's eyes were opened to the corruption of the roman church and his resolution formed to overthrow that church. luther himself is said to be responsible for this false view. he fostered it by his tales of what he had seen and heard at rome with disgust and horror. his horrid impressions are declared pure fiction, and simply serve to show how little the man can be trusted in anything he states. to leave a way open for a decent retreat, catholics also point to a difference in temperament between the phlegmatic luther coming from a northern clime, which through its atmospheric rigors begets somber reflections and gloomy thoughts, and the airy, fairy italians, who revel in sunshine, flowers, and fruits, drink fiery wines, and naturally grow up into a freedom of manners and lack of restraint that is characteristic of people living in southern climes. all of which means-- if it means anything serious--that the ten commandments are subject to revision according to the geographic latitude in which a person happens to be. when your austere gentleman, raised among the fens and bogs of the frisian coast, sees something in a grove in sicily which he denounces as wicked, you must tell him that there is nothing wrong in what he has seen. he has only omitted to adjust his temperament to the locality. if you follow out this line of thought to the end, you will come to a point where you strike hands with rudyard kipling, who has sung enthusiastically about a certain locality beyond aden where the ten commandments do not exist. and to think that this plea is made by people who have charged luther with having put the ten commandments out of commission for himself and others! italians, lovers of freedom and unrestraint, were the first to fill the world with tales about the moral besottedness of luther! this goes to show that in any application of the ten commandments it matters very much who does the applying. we have in a previous chapter briefly reviewed the popes that were contemporaries of luther. their character was stamped on the life of the holy city: the popes and their following gave rome its moral, or immoral, face. the chroniclers of those days have described the existing conditions. luther need not have said one word about what wicked things he had seen and heard at rome, either ten years, or twenty years, or thirty years after he had been there, and the world would still know the record of the residence of the popes. luther really saw very little of what he might have seen, and it is probable that he has told less. but what he did see and hear are facts. he did not grasp their full meaning nor see their true bearing at the time. the real import of his roman experiences dawned on him at a later period. he spoke as a man of things that he had seen as a child. but that does not alter the facts. luther was shocked at the levity of italian monks who were babbling faulty latin prayers which they did not understand and remarked laughing to him: "never mind; the holy ghost understands us, and the devil flees apace." luther's confidence in the boasted unity of the roman church was somewhat shaken when he discovered that he could not read mass in any church in the territory at milan, because there the ambrosian form of service was prescribed while he had been trained to the gregorian. luther shook his head at the freedom of certain public manners of the italians which reminded him of dogs and of what he had read about kerkyra. luther heard of a lenten collation, probably at the abbey of san benedetto de larione, where the word "fast" had to be spelled with an _e_ as the second letter. the loquaciousness, spicy talk, blasphemy, dishonesty, treachery, quarrelsomeness, and deadly animosities of the italians, luther regards as strange, considering that they live so near to the holy city. he wondered why the italians do not permit their women to go out of their houses except deeply veiled. he finds that the italians show no respect for their beautiful churches and the divine service conducted in them. even on great festivals the magnificent cathedrals are almost empty, the worshipers are chatting with one another while the service is in progress. even quarrels are settled at these holy places, sometimes with the knife. when there is a burial, they hurry the corpse to the grave, not even the relatives being in attendance. he is grieved at the irreligious manner in which the priests at rome read mass. they hurry through the performance with incredible rapidity. they crowd each other away from the altar in their haste to get their performance finished. "hurry, hurry! begone! come away!" he hears them calling to one-another. sometimes two priests are reading mass at one altar at the same time. they had finished the whole mass before luther had reached the gospel in the service of the mass. and then they would receive money from the bystanders who had come in and had watched them. in a half hour a priest could get a handful of silver. luther refused such gifts. luther heard few preachers at rome, and those that he heard he did not like. they were very lively in the delivery of their sermons, they would run to and fro in their pulpit, bend far over toward the audience, utter violent cries, change their voice suddenly, and gesticulate like madmen. luther saw pope julius from a distance several times. he thought it queer that a healthy and strong man like the pope should have himself carried to church in a litter instead of walking thither, and that such show should be made of his going there and a procession should be formed to accompany him. he saw the pope sit at the altar and hold out his foot to be kissed by people. he saw the pope take communion. he did not kneel like other communicants, but sat on his magnificent throne; a cardinal priest handed him the chalice, and he sipped the wine through a silver tube. however, these and other things did not at the time shake luther's belief in the catholic church. he came to rome and left rome a devout catholic. staupitz, the vicar of his order, had really gratified him in permitting him to go to rome as the traveling companion of another monk. luther had expressed the wish to make a general confession at rome. with this thought on his mind he started out, and he treated the whole journey as a pilgrimage. after the manner of pious monks the two companions walked one behind the other, reciting prayers and litanies. whether his general confession and his first mass at rome, probably at santa maria del popolo, gave him that sense of spiritual satisfaction which he craved, he has not told us. when he had come in sight of the city, he had fallen on his face like the crusaders in sight of jerusalem, and had fervently blessed that moment. now he ran through the seven stations of rome, read masses wherever he could, gathered an abundance of indulgences by going through prescribed forms of worship at many shrines, listened to miracle-tales, knelt before the veil of st. veronica near the golden gate at san giovanni and before the bronze statue of st. peter in the chapel of st. martin, where a crucifix had of its own accord raised itself up and become transfixed in the dome, saw the rope with which judas hanged himself fastened to the altar of the apostles simon and judas at st. peter's, the stone in the chapel of st. petronella on which the penitential tears of peter had fallen, cutting a groove in it two fingers wide, had the guide show him the pope's crown, the tiara, which, he thought, cost more money than all the princes of germany possessed, was perplexed at finding the heads and bodies of peter and paul assigned to different places, at the lateran church and at san paolo fuori, mounted the scala santa--pilate's staircase--on his knees, passed with awe the relief picture in one of the streets which the popular legend declared to be that of the female pope johanna and her child, saw the ancient pagan deities of rome depicted in santa maria della rotonda, the old pantheon, stared at the head of john the baptist in san silvestro in capite, tried, but failed to read the famous saturday mass at san giovanni, the oldest and greatest sanctuary of christianity, rested from a fatiguing tour through the lateran in santa croce in gerusalemme, where pope sylvester ii, the faustus of the italians, was carried away by the devils, went through the catacombs with its martyred popes and , other martyrs, etc., etc. looking back to this visit later, luther remarked, "i believed everything" just what official rome expected every devout pilgrim to do, just what it expects them to do to-day. and these romanists want to point the finger of ridicule at the simpleton, the easy dupe, the holy fool luther! does rome perhaps think the same of all the pious pilgrims that annually crowd rome? luther heard himself called "un buon christiano" at rome and discovered that that meant as much as "an egregious ass." but he considered that a part of italian wickedness. the church, he was sure, approved of all that he did, in fact, had taught him to do all that. it required ten years or more to disabuse his mind of the frauds that had been practised on him, and then he declared that he would not take , gulden not to have seen with his own eyes how scandalously the popes were hoodwinking christians. if it were not for his visit at rome, he says, he might fear that he was slandering the popes in what he wrote about them. while luther's visit at rome, then, brought about no spiritual change in him, it helped to give him a good conscience afterwards when his conflict with rome had begun. . pastor luther. luther's famous protest against the sale of indulgences, published october , , in the form of ninety-five theses, is represented by catholic writers as an outburst of luther's violent temper and an assault upon the catholic church that he had long premeditated. by this time, it is said, luther had become known to his colleagues as a quarrelsome man, loving disputations and jealous of victory in a debate. his methods of teaching at the university were novel, in defiance of the settled customs of the church. his dangerous innovations caused the suspicion to spring up that he was plotting rebellion against the authority of the church. the arrival of the indulgence-hawker tetzel in the neighborhood of wittenberg gave him the long-looked-for occasion to strike a blow at the sacred teachings of the church which he had solemnly promised to support and defend against all heretics, and from whose teachings he had already apostatized in his heart. the fact is that luther was so little conscious of an intention to stir up strife for his church that he was probably the most surprised man in germany when he observed the excitement which his theses were causing. the method he had chosen for voicing his opinion had no revolutionary element in it. it was an invitation to the learned doctors to debate with him the doctrinal grounds for the sale of indulgences. catholic writers point to the fact that luther declared at a later time that he did not know what an indulgence was when he attacked tetzel. they seek to prove from this remark of luther that it was not conscientious scruples, but the desire to cause trouble in the church that prompted luther to his action. they do not see that this remark speaks volumes for luther. by his theses he meant to get at the truth of the teaching concerning indulgences. his theses were written in latin, not in the people's language. others translated them into german and scattered them broadcast throughout germany. the theses are no labored effort to set up, by skilful, logical argument and in carefully chosen terms, a new dogma in oppositon [tr. note: sic] to the teaching of the church, but they are exceptions hurriedly thrown on paper, like the notes jotted down by a speaker to guide him in a discussion of his subject. last, not least, the theses, while contradicting the prevailing practise of selling indulgences, breathe loyalty to the catholic church. from our modern standpoint luther appears in the theses as half protestant, or evangelical, half roman catholic. in his own view he was altogether catholic. his theses were merely a call: let there be light! let our consciences be duly instructed! we still have a letter which luther wrote to pope leo x about six months after he had published the theses. this letter shows in what an orderly and quiet way luther proceeded in his attack upon the traffic in indulgences, and how much he believed himself in accord with the pope and the church. we shall quote a few statements from this letter: "in these latter days a jubilee of papal indulgences began to be preached, and the preachers, thinking everything allowed them under the protection of your name, dared to teach impiety and heresy openly, to the grave scandal and mockery of ecclesiastical powers, totally disregarding the provisions of the canon law about the misconduct of officials. . . . they met with great success, the people were sucked dry on false pretenses, . . . but the oppressors lived on the fat and sweetness of the land. they avoided scandals only by the terror of your name, the threat of the stake, and the brand of heresy, . . . if, indeed, this can be called avoiding scandals and not rather exciting schisms and revolt by crass tyranny. . . . "i privately warned some of the dignitaries of the church. by some the admonition was well received, by others ridiculed, by others treated in various ways, for the terror of your name and the dread of censure are strong. at length, when i could do nothing else, i determined to stop their mad career if only for a moment; i resolved to call their assertions in question. so i published some propositions for debate, inviting only the more learned to discuss them with me, as ought to be plain to my opponents from the preface to my theses. [this was, by the way, a common practise in those days among the learned professors at universities.] yet this is the flame with which they seek to set the world on fire! . . ." ( , ; transl. by preserved smith.) luther's publication of the theses was the act of a conscientious christian pastor. being a priest, luther had to hear confession. through the confessional he learned how the common people viewed the indulgences: they actually believed that by buying indulgences they were freed from all the guilt and punishment of their sins. absolution became a plain business transaction: you pay your money and you take your goods. luther wrote this to his archbishop the same day on which he published his theses. "papal indulgences," he says in the letter to albert, archbishop of mayence and primate of germany, "for the building of st. peter's are hawked about under your illustrious sanction. i do not now accuse the sermons of the preachers who advertise them, for i have not seen the same, but i regret that the people have conceived about them the most erroneous ideas. forsooth, these unhappy souls believe that, if they buy letters of pardon, they are sure of their salvation; likewise, that souls fly out of purgatory as soon as money is cast into the chest; in short, that the, grace conferred is so great that there is no sin whatever which cannot be absolved thereby, even if, as they say, taking an impossible example, a man should violate the mother of god. they also believe that indulgences free them from all penalty and guilt." ( , ; transl. by preserved smith, p. .) luther had preached against the popular belief in indulgences, pilgrimages to shrines of the saints and their relics, for two years before he published his theses. he was confident that the church could not countenance this belief. forgiveness of sins is to the penitent in heart who are sorry for their sins, and their sins are forgiven for christ's sake, who atoned for them, and in whom we have the forgiveness of sin by the redemption through his blood. this is the scriptural doctrine of penitence,--that sorrowful, contrite, and believing attitude of the heart which is the characteristic of true christians throughout their lives. through penitence we become absolved in the sight of god from all guilt and punishment of our sins, and the minister, by announcing this fact, is to convey to the penitent the assurance that his sins have been forgiven. whatever penances or pious exercises the church may impose an sinners who have confessed their sins can only be imposed as a wholesome disciplinary measure and as aids to the needed reformation of life. these penances, since they originate in the choice of the church, may also be remitted by the church, and for these penances the church may accept a commutation in money, which payment, however, cannot supersede the paramount duty of the penitent to amend his sinful conduct. such were luther's views in brief outline at the time he published his theses. if we are to take modern catholic critics of luther seriously, that has also been the teaching of their church on the subject of indulgences. they claim that the good intentions of the popes were grossly misinterpreted and the system of indulgences was put to uses for which it was never intended. if that is the case, why do they attack luther for his attempt to have the abuses corrected? according to their own presentation of the true teaching of the church on the subject of indulgences, luther was the most dutiful son of the church in his day in what he did on all souls' eve, . but the roman teaching on indulgences is not such an innocent affair as catholics would have us believe. the practise of substituting for penances some good work or contribution to a pious purpose had arisen in the church at a very early time. "this," says preserved smith, who has well condensed the history of indulgences, "was the seed of indulgence which would never have grown to its later enormous proportions had it not been for the crusades. mohammed promised his followers paradise if they fell in battle against unbelievers, but christian warriors were at first without this comforting assurance. their faith was not long left in doubt, however, for as early as leo iv promised heaven to the franks who died fighting against the moslems. a quarter of a century later john viii proclaimed absolution for all sins and remission of all penalties to soldiers in the holy war, and from this time on the 'crusade indulgence' became a regular means of recruiting, used, for example, by leo ix in and by urban ii in . by this time the practise had grown up of regarding an indulgence as a remission not only of penance, but of the pains of purgatory. the means which had proved successful in getting soldiers for the crusade were first used in or to get money for the same end, pardon being assured to those who gave enough to fit out one soldier on the same terms as if they had gone themselves. "when the crusades ceased, in the thirteenth century, indulgences did not fall into desuetude. at the jubilee of pope boniface viii, in , a plenary indulgence was granted to all who made a pilgrimage to rome. the pope reaped such an enormous harvest from the gifts of these pilgrims that he saw fit to employ similar means at frequent intervals, and soon extended the same privileges as were granted to pilgrims to all who contributed for some pious purpose at their own homes. agents were sent out to sell these pardons, and were given power to confess and absolve, so that in boniface ix was able to announce complete remission of both guilt and penalty to the purchasers of his letters. "having assumed the right to free living men from future punishment, it was but a step for the popes to proclaim that they had the power to deliver the souls of the dead from purgatory. the existence of this power was an open question until decided by calixtus iii in , but full use of the faculty was not made until twenty years later, after which it became of all branches of the indulgence trade the most profitable." the reader will note that the indulgence trade in its latest form had not become a general thing until about six years before luther's birth. it was a comparatively new thing that luther attacked. in our remarks on monasticism in a previous chapter we alluded to the roman teaching concerning the treasure of the merits of the saints, or the treasure of the church. this teaching greatly fructified the theory of indulgences. it has never been shown, and never will be, how this treasure originates. in the work of our redeemer there was nothing superabundant that the scriptures name. he fulfilled the entire law for man, and his merits are of inestimable value. but they were all needed for the work of satisfying divine justice. moreover, all these merits of christ are freely given to each and every believer and cancel all his guilt, according to the statement of paul: "christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." as regards the merits of the saints, which they accumulated by doing good works in excess of what they were required to do, this is a purely imaginary asset of the papal bank of rome. every man, with all that he is and has and is able to do, owes himself wholly to god. at the best he can only do his duty. there is no chance for doing good works in excess of duty. if he were really to do all, he would only do what it was his duty to do, luke , , and would be told to regard himself, even in that most favorable case, as an unprofitable servant. but supposing there were superabundant merits, supererogatory works of christ and the saints, who has determined their quantity? who takes the inventory of this stock of the papal bank of rome? is he the same party who determines the length of a person's stay in purgatory and can tell how much he has been in arrears in the matter of goodness and virtuousness, and how much cash will purchase his release? how is this intelligence conveyed to purgatory that mr. so-and-so is free to proceed to heaven? a multitude of such questions arising in all thinking minds that want to arrive at rock bottom facts in so serious a matter always baffle the theologians of rome. they owe the world an answer on these questions for four hundred years. is the world doing rome an injustice when it regards the sale of indulgences a pure confidence game in holy disguise, the offer of a fictitious value for good cash, the boldest and baldest gold-bricking that mankind has heen [tr. note: sic] subjected to? the sale of indulgences which was started in luther's days was a particularly offensive enterprise. "it was not so much the theory of the church that excited luther's indignation as it was the practises of some of her agents. they encouraged the common man to believe that the purchase of a papal pardon would assure him impunity without any real repentance on his part. moreover, whatever the theoretical worth of indulgences, the motive of their sale was notoriously the greed of unscrupulous ecclesiastics. the 'holy trade' as it was called had become so thoroughly commercialized by that a banking house, the fuggers of augsburg, were the direct agents of the curia in germany. in return for their services in forwarding the pope's bulls, and in hiring sellers of pardons, this wealthy house made a secret agreement in by which it received one-third of the total profits of the trade, and in formally took over the whole management of the business in return for the modest commission of one-half the net receipts. naturally not a word was said by the preachers to the people as to the destination of so large a portion of their money, but enough was known to make many men regard indulgences as an open scandal. "the history of the particular trade attacked by luther is one of special infamy. albert of brandenburg, a prince of the enterprising house of hohenzollern, was bred to the church and rapidly rose by political influence to the highest ecclesiastical position in germany. in , he was elected, at the age of twenty-three, archbishop of magdeburg and administrator of the bishopric of halberstadt,--an uncanonical accumulation of sees confirmed by the pope in return for a large payment. hardly had albert paid this before he was elected archbishop and elector of mayence and primate of germany (march , ). as he was not yet of canonical age to possess even one bishopric, not to mention three of the greatest in the empire, the pope refused to confirm his nomination except for an enormous sum. the curia at first demanded twelve thousand ducats for the twelve apostles. albert offered seven for the seven deadly sins. the average between apostles and sins was struck at ten thousand ducats, or fifty thousand dollars, a sum equal in purchasing power to near a million to-day. albert borrowed this, too, from the fuggers, and was accordingly confirmed on august , . "in order to allow the new prelate to recoup himself, leo obligingly declared an indulgence for the benefit of st. peter's church, to run eight years from march , . by this transaction, one of the most disgraceful in the history of the papacy, as well as in that of the house of brandenburg, the curia made a vast sum. albert did not come off so well. first, a number of princes, including the rulers of both saxonies, forbade the trade in their dominions, and the profits of what remained were deeply cut by the unexpected attack of a young monk." (preserved smith, p. ff.) luther had ample reason to dread the demoralizing effect of the indulgence-venders' activity upon the common people. in the sermons of tetzel the church where he happened to do business was raised to equal dignity with st. peter's at rome. instead of confessing to an ordinary priest, he told the masses they had now the rare privilege of confessing to an apostolical vicar, specially detailed for this work. with consummate skill he worked on the tender feelings of parents, of mothers, who were mourning the loss of children, or of children who had lost their parents. he impersonated the departed in their agonies in purgatory, he made the people hear the pitiful moaning of the victims in the purgatorial fires, and transmitted their heartrending appeals for speedy help to the living. he clinched the argument by playing on the people's covetousness: for the fourth part of a gulden they could transfer a suffering soul safely to the home of the eternal paradise. had they ever had a greater bargain offered to them? never would they have this indispensable means of salvation brought within easier reach. now was the time, now or never! " ye murderers, ye usurers, ye robbers, ye slaves of vice," he cried out, "now is the time for you to hear the voice of god, who does not desire the death of the sinner, but would have the sinner repent and live. turn, then, o jerusalem, to the lord, thy god!" he declared that the red cross of the indulgence-venders, with the papal arms, raised in a church, possessed the same virtue as the cross of christ. if peter were present in person, he would not possess greater authority, nor could he dispense grace more effectually than he. yea, he would not trade his glory as an indulgence-seller with peter's glory; for he had saved more souls by selling the indulgences than peter by preaching. every time a coin clinked in his money chest a liberated soul was soaring to heaven. catholic writers declare that the people were told that they must repent in order to obtain forgiveness. so they were, in the manner aforestated. repenting meant buying a letter of pardon from the pope. that is the reason why luther worded the first two of his ninety-five theses as he did: "our lord and master jesus christ in saying: _poenitentiam agite!_ meant that the whole life of the faithful should be repentance. and these words cannot refer to penance--that is, confession and satisfaction." the latin phrase "poenitentiam agere" has a double meaning: it may mean "repent" and "do penance." our lord used the phrase in the first, the indulgence-sellers in the second sense. since the people had been raised in the belief that the church had the authority from god to impose church fines on them for their trespasses, by which they were to remove the temporal punishment of their sins, this was called "doing penance,"--they were actually led to believe that the were obeying a command of christ in buying a letter of indulgence. and not only did the people believe that they were purchasing release from temporal punishment, but from the guilt of sin and all its effects. the common man from the fields and the streets did not make the fine distinction of the hair-splitting theologians: his bargain meant to him that hell was closed and heaven open for him. another favorite defense of modern catholic writers is, that the money paid for an indulgence was not meant to purchase anything, but was to be viewed as a thank-offering which the grateful hearts of the pardoned prompted them to make to the church who had brought them the pardon free, gratis, and for nothing. this is cardinal gibbons's argument. he points triumphantly to the fact that the letters of indulgence were never handed the applicants at the same desk at which the "thank-offerings" were received. he does not say which desk the applicant approached first. but, supposing he obtained the letter first and then, with a heart bounding with joy and gratitude, hurried to the other desk, we have an interesting psychological problem confronting us. the two acts, the delivery of the letter of indulgence and the surrendering of the thank-offering, we are told, are independent the one of the other. both are free acts, the one the free forgiveness of the church, the other the free giving of the pardoned. the church's grant of pardon has nothing to do with the payment of indulgence-money, and the indulgence-money is not related to the letter of indulgence. now, then, the purchaser of an indulgence performs this remarkable feat: when he stands at the desk where the letter is handed to him, he does not think of any cost that he incurs. he views the letter as a pure gift. then, obeying a sudden impulse of gratitude, he turns to the other desk and hands the official some money. he manages to think that he is not paying for anything, that would be utterly improper. how could a person pay for a donation, especially such a donation of spiritual and heavenly treasures? one disturbing element, however, remains: the amount of the thank-offering was fixed beforehand for particular sins, probably to regulate the recipient's gratitude and make it adequate. the writer has resolved to test the psychology of this process on himself the next time the boston symphony company comes to town. he will try and think of the great singers as true benefactors of mankind, who go about the country bestowing favors on the public, and when he comes to the ticket-window he will merely make a thank-offering for the pleasure he is receiving. the scheme ought to work as well in this instance as in the other. . the case of luther's friend myconius. there is a remarkable instance recorded in the annals of the reformation which strikingly illustrates the operations of the indulgence-venders. this record deserves not to be forgotten. gustav freitag, the famous writer of german history, has embodied it in his sketch "doktor luther." frederic mecum, in latin myconius, had become a monk in the franciscan order. he had had an experience with tetzel which caused him to turn to luther with joy and wonder when the latter had published his theses. few of the writings of myconius, who afterwards became the evangelical pastor of the city of gotha, have been preserved. in the ducal library at gotha freitag found [tr. note: sic] an account in latin of the incident to which we have referred. it is as follows: "john tetzel, of pirna in meissen, a dominican friar, was a powerful peddler of indulgences or the remission of sins by the roman pope. he tarried with this purpose of his for two years in the city of annaberg, new at that time, and deceived the people so much that they all believed there was no other way of obtaining the forgiveness of sins and eternal life except to make amends with our works; concerning this making of amends, however, he said that it was impossible. but a single way was still left, that is, if we purchased the same for money from the roman pope, bought for ourselves, therefore, the pope's indulgence, which he called the forgiveness of sins and a certain entrance into eternal life. here i might tell wonders upon wonders and incredible things, what kind of sermons i heard tetzel preach these two years in annaberg, for i heard him preach quite diligently, and he preached every day; i could repeat his sermons to others, too, with all the gestures and intonations; not that i made him an object of ridicule, but i was entirely in earnest. for i considered everything as oracles and divine words, which one had to believe, and what came from the pope i regarded as if coming from christ himself. "finally, at pentecost, in the year of our lord , he threatened he would lay down the red cross and lock the door of heaven and put out the sun, and it would never again come about that the forgiveness of sins and eternal life could be obtained for so little money. yes, he said, it was not to be expected that such charitableness of the pope should come hither again as long as the world would stand. he also exhorted that every one should attend well to the salvation of his own soul and to that of his deceased and living friends. for now was at hand, according to him, the day of his salvation and the accepted time. and he said: 'let no one under any condition neglect his own salvation; for if you do not have the pope's letters, you cannot be absolved and delivered by any human being from many sins and "reserved cases"' (that is, cases with which an ordinary priest was not qualified to deal). on the doors and walls of the church printed letters were publicly posted in which it was ordered that one should henceforth not sell the letters of indulgence and the full power at the close as dear as in the beginning, in order to give the german people a sign of gratitude for their devotion; and at the end of the letter at the foot was written in addition, _'pauperibus dentur gratis,'_ to the needy the letters of indulgence are to be given for nothing, without money, for the sake of god. "then i began to deal with the deputies of this indulgence-peddler; but, in truth, i was impelled and urged to do so by the holy ghost, although i myself did not understand at the time what i was doing. "my dear father had taught me in my childhood the ten commandments, the lord's prayer, and the christian creed, and compelled me always to pray. for, he said, we had everything from god alone, gratis, for nothing, and he would also govern and lead us if we prayed with diligence. of the indulgences and roman remission of sins he said that they were only snares with which one tricked the simple out of their money and took it from their purses, that the forgiveness of sins and eternal life could certainly not be purchased and acquired with money. but the priests or preachers became angry and enraged when one said such things. because i heard then nothing else in the sermons every day but the greatest praise of the remission of sins, i was filled with doubt as to whom i was to believe more, my father or the priests as teachers of the church. i was in doubt, but still i believed the priests more than the instruction of my father. but one thing i did not grant, that the forgiveness of sins could not be acquired unless it was purchased with money, above all by the poor. on this account i was wonderfully well pleased with the little clause at the end of the pope's letter, _'pauperibus gratis dentur propter deum.'_ "and as they, in three days, intended to lay down the cross with special magnificence and cut off the steps and ladders to heaven, i was impelled by my spirit to go to the commissioners and ask for the letters of the forgiveness of sins 'out of mercy for the poor.' i declared also that i was a sinner and poor and in need of the forgiveness of sins, which was granted through divine grace. on the second day, around evening, i entered hans pflock's house where tetzel was assembled with the father-confessors and crowds of priests, and i addressed them in latin and requested that they might allow me, poor man, to ask, according to the command in the pope's letter, for the absolution of all my sins for nothing and for the sake of god, _'etiam nullo casu reservato,'_ without reserving a single case, and in regard to the same they should give me the pope's _'literas testimoniales,'_ or written testimony. then the priests were astonished at my latin speech, for that was a rare thing at this time, especially in the case of young boys; and they soon went out of the room into the small chamber which i was alongside, to the commissioner tetzel. they made my desire known to him, and also asked in my behalf that he might give me the letters of indulgence for nothing. finally, after long counsel, they returned and brought this answer: _'dear son, we have put your petition before the commissioner with all diligence, and he confesses that he would gladly grant your request, but that he could not; and although he might wish to do so, the concession would nevertheless be naught and ineffective. for he declared unto us that it was clearly written in the pope's letter that those would certainly share in the exceeding generous indulgences and treasures of the church and the merits of christ _qui porrigerent manum adjutricem,_ who offered a helping hand; that is, those who would give money.' and all that they told me in german, for there was not one among them who could have spoken three latin words correctly with any one. "in return, however, i entreated anew, and proved from the pope's letter which had been posted that the holy father, the pope, had commanded that such letters should be given to the poor for nothing, for the sake of the lord; and especially because there had also been written there _'ad mandatum domini papae proprium,'_ that is, at the pope's own command. "then they went in again and asked the proud, haughty friar, that he might kindly grant my request and let me go from him with the letter of indulgence, since i was a clever and fluently-speaking young man and worthy of having something exceptional granted me. but they came out again and brought again the answer, _'de manu auxiliatrice,' concerning the helping hand, which alone was fit for the holy indulgence. i, however, remained firm and said that they were doing me, a poor man, an injustice; the one whom both god and the pope were unwilling to shut out of divine grace was rejected by them for some few pennies which i did not have. then a contention arose that i should at least give something small, in order that the helping-hand might not be lacking, that i should only give a groschen; i said, 'i do not have it, i am poor.' at last it came to the point where i was to give six pfennigs; then i answered again that i did not have a single pfennig. they tried to console me and spoke with one another. finally i heard that they were worried about two things, in the first place, that i should in no case be allowed to go without a letter of indulgence, for this might be a plan devised by others, and that some bad affair might hereafter result from it, since it was clear in the pope's letter that it should be given to the poor for nothing. again, however, something would nevertheless have to be taken from me in order that the others might not hear that the letters of indulgence were being given out for nothing; for the whole pack of pupils and beggars would then come running, and each one would want the same for nothing. they should not have found it necessary to be worried about that, for the poor beggars were looking more for their blessed bread to drive away their hunger. "after they had held their deliberation, they came again to me and one gave me six pfennigs that i should give them to the commissioner. through this contribution i, too, should become, according to them, a builder of the church of st. peter, at rome, likewise a slayer of the turk, and should furthermore share in the grace of christ and the indulgences. but then i said frankly, impelled by the spirit, if i wished to buy indulgences and the remission of sins for money, i could in all likelihood sell a book and buy them for my own money. i wanted them, however, for nothing, as gifts, for the sake of god, or they would have to give an account before god for having neglected and trifled away my soul's salvation on account of six pfennigs, since, as they knew, both god and the pope wished that my soul should share in the forgiveness of all my sins for nothing, through grace. this i said, and yet, in truth, i did not know how matters stood with the letters of indulgence. "at last, after a long conversation, the priests asked me by whom i had been sent to them, and who had instructed me to carry on such dealings with them. then i told them the pure, simple truth, as it was, that i had not been exhorted or urged by any one at all or brought to it by any advisers, but that i had made such a request alone, without counsel of any man, only with the confidence and trust in the gracious forgiveness of sins which is given for nothing; and that i had never spoken or had dealings with such great people during all my life. for i was by nature timid, and if i had not been forced by my great thirst for god's grace, i should not have undertaken anything so great and mixed with such people and requested anything like that of them. then the letters of indulgence were again promised me, but yet in such a way that i should buy them for six pfennigs which were to be given to me, as far as i was concerned, for nothing. i, however, continued to insist that the letters of indulgence should be given to me for nothing by him who had the power to give them; if not, i should commend and refer the matter to god. and so i was dismissed by them. "the holy thieves, notwithstanding, became sad in consequence of these dealings; i, however, was partly downcast that i had received no letter of indulgence, partly i rejoiced, too, that there was, in spite of all, still one in heaven who was willing to forgive the penitent sinner his sins without money and loan, according to the words that i had often sung in church: 'as true as i live, says the lord, i desire not the death of the sinner, but that he be converted and live.' oh, dear lord and god, thou knowest that i am not lying in this matter, or inventing anything about myself. "while doing this, i was so moved that i, on returning to my inn, almost gushed forth and melted to tears. thus i came to my inn, went to my room, and took the cross which always lay upon the little table in my study-room, placed it upon the bench, and fell down upon the floor before it. i cannot describe it here, but at that time i was able to feel the spirit of prayer and divine grace which thou, my lord and god, pouredst out over me. the essential import of the same, however, was this: i asked that thou, dear god, mightst be willing to be my father, that thou mightst be willing to forgive me for my sins, that i submitted myself wholly to thee, that thou mightst make of me now whatsoever pleased thee, and because the priests did not wish to be gracious to me without money, that thou mightst be willing to be my gracious god and father. "then i felt that my whole heart was changed. i was disgusted with everything in this world, and it seemed to me that i had quite enough of this life. one thing only did i desire, that is, to live for god, that i might be pleasing to him. but who was there at that time who would have taught me how i had to go about it? for the word, life, and light of mankind was buried throughout the whole world in the deepest darkness of human ordinances and of the quite foolish good works. of christ there was complete silence, nothing was known about him, or, if mention was made of him, he was represented unto us as a dreadful, fearful judge, whom scarcely his mother and all the saints in heaven could reconcile and make merciful with bloody tears; and yet it was done in such a way that he, christ, thrust the human being who did penance into the pains of purgatory seven years for each capital sin. it was claimed that the pain of purgatory differed from the pain of hell in nothing except that it was not to last forever. the holy ghost, however, now brought me the hope that god would be merciful unto me. "and now i began to take counsel a few days with myself as to how i might take up some other vocation in life. for i saw the sin of the world and of the whole human race; i saw my manifold sin, which was very great. i had also heard something of the secret holiness and the pure, innocent life of the monks, how they served god day and night, were separated from all the wicked life of the world, and lived very sober, pious, and virtuous lives, read masses, sang psalms, fasted, and prayed at all times. i had also seen this sham life, but i did not know and understand that it was the greatest idolatry and hypocrisy. "thereupon i made my decision known to the preceptor, master andreas staffelstein, who was the chief regent of the school; he advised me straightway to enter the franciscan cloister, the rebuilding of which had been begun at that time. and in order that i might not become differently minded in consequence of long delay, he straightway went with me himself to the monks, praised my intellect and ability, declared in terms of praise that he bad considered me the only one among his pupils of whom he was entirely confident that i should become a very devout man. "i wished, however, first to announce my intention to my parents, too, and hear their ideas about the matter, since i was a lone son and heir of my parents. the monks, however, taught me from st. jerome that i should drop father and mother, and not take them into consideration, and run to the cross of christ. they quoted, too, the words of christ, 'no one who lays hands to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of god.' all of this was bound to impel and enjoin me to become a monk. i will not speak here of many ropes and fetters with which they bound and tied my conscience. for they said that i could never become blessed if i did not soon accept and use the grace offered by god. thereupon i, who would rather have been willing to die than be without the grace of god and eternal life, straightway promised and engaged to come into the cloister again in three days and begin the year of probation, as they called it, in the cloister; that is, i wanted to become a pious, devout, and god-fearing monk. "in the year of christ , the th of july, at two o'clock in the afternoon, i entered the cloister, accompanied by my preceptor, some few of my school-comrades, and some very devout matrons, to whom i had in part made known the reason why i was entering the spiritual order. and so i blessed my companions to the cloister, all of whom, amid tears, wished me god's grace and blessing. and thus i entered the cloister. dear god, thou knowest that this is all true. i did not seek idleness or provision for my stomach, nor the appearance of great holiness, but i wished to be pleasing unto thee--thee i wished to serve. "thus i at that time groped about in very great darkness" (p. ff.)* *this account is published by the courtesy of the lutheran publication society of philadelphia; it is taken from their publication _doctor luther,_ by gustav freitag. few christians can read this old record without pity stirring in them. the man of whom myconius tells all this, tetzel, has been recently represented to the american public as a theologian far superior to luther, calm, considerate, kind, and of his actions the public has been advised that they were so utterly correct that the roman catholic church of to-day does not hesitate one moment to do what tetzel did. so mote it be! we admire the writer's honesty, and blush for his brazen boldness. . luther's faith without works. out of luther's opposition to the sale of indulgences there grew in the course of time one of the fundamental principles of protestantism: complete, universal, and free salvation of sinners by grace through faith in jesus christ. in the controversies which started immediately after the publication of the ninety-five theses, luther was led step by step to a greater clearness in his view of sin and grace, faith and works, human reason and the divine revelation. not yet realizing the full import of his act, luther had in the theses made that article of the christian faith with which the church either stands or falls the issue of his lifelong conflict with rome--the article of the justification of a sinner before god. it is, therefore, convenient to review the misrepresentations which luther has suffered from catholic writers because of his teaching on the subject of justification at this early stage in our review, though in doing so a great many things will have to be anticipated. catholic writers charge luther with having perverted the meaning of justifying faith. luther held that justifying faith is essentially the assurance that since christ lived on earth as a man, labored, suffered, died, and rose again in the place of sinners, the world _en masse_ and every individual sinner are without guilt in the estimation of god. "god was in christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." ( cor. , .) to this reconciliation the sinner has contributed nothing. it has been accomplished without him. he cannot add anything to it. god only asks the sinner to believe in his salvation as finished by jesus christ. to believe this fact does not mean to perform a work of merit in consideration of which god is willing to bestow salvation on the believer, but it means to accept the work of christ as performed in our place, to rejoice therein, and to repose a sure confidence in this salvation in defiance of the accusations of our own conscience, the incriminations which the broken law of god hurls at us, and the terrors of the final judgment. the believer regards himself as righteous before god not because of any good work that he has done, but because of the work which christ has performed in his place. the believer holds that, when god, by raising christ from the dead, accepted his work as a sufficient atonement for men's guilt and an adequate fulfilment of the divine law, he accepted each and every sinner. the believer is certain that through the work of his great brother, christ, he has been restored to a child relationship with god and enjoys child's privileges with his father in heaven. the idea that he himself has done anything to bring about this blessed state of affairs is utterly foreign to this faith in christ. catholic writers assert that the doctrine which we have just outlined is not scriptural, but represents the grossest perversion of scripture. they say this doctrine originated in "the erratic brain of luther." luther "was not an exact thinker, and being unable to analyze an idea into its constituents, as is necessary for one who will apprehend it correctly, he failed to grasp questions which by the general mass of the people were thoroughly and correctly understood. . . . he allowed himself to cultivate an unnecessary antipathy to so-called 'holiness by works,' and this attitude, combined with his tendency to look at the worst side of things, and his knowledge of some real abuses then prevalent in the practise of works, doubtless contributed to develop his dislike for good works in general, and led him by degrees to strike at the very roots of the catholic system of sacraments and grace, of penance and satisfaction, in fact, all the instruments or means instituted by god both for conferring and increasing his saving relationship with man." luther's teaching on justification is said to be the inevitable reverse of his former self-exaltation. abandoning the indispensable virtue of humility, he had become a prey to spiritual pride, and had entered the monastery to achieve perfect righteousness by his own works. he had disregarded the wise counsels of his brethren, who had warned him not to depend too much on his own powers, but seek the aid of god. then failing to make himself perfect, he had run to the other extreme and declared that there was nothing good in man at all, and that man could not of himself perform any worthy action. finally he had hit upon the idea that justification means, "not an infusion of justice into the heart of the person justified, but a mere external imputation of it." faith, in luther's view, thus becomes an assurance that this imputation has taken place, and man accordingly need not give himself any more trouble about his salvation. this teaching, catholic writers contend, subverts the prominent teaching of the scriptures that man must obey god and keep his commandments, that he must be perfect, even as his father in heaven is perfect, that he must follow in the footsteps of jesus who said: "i am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil it." furthermore, this teaching is said to dehumanize man and make out of him a stock and a stone, utterly unfit for any spiritual effort. god, they say, constituted man a rational being and imposed certain precepts on him which he was free to keep or violate as he might choose unto eternal happiness or eternal misery. the sin which all inherit from adam has weakened the powers of man to do good, but it has not entirely abolished them. there is still something good in man by nature, and if he wants to please god and obtain his aid in his good endeavors, he must at least do as much as is still in his power to do, and believe that god for jesus' sake will assist him to become perfect, if not in this life, then, at any rate, in the life to come. he cannot avoid sin altogether, but he can avoid sin to a certain extent; he can at least lead an outwardly decent life. that is worth something, that is "meritorious." he may not feel a very deep contrition over his wrong-doings, but he can feel at least an attrition, that is, a little sorrow, or he can wish that he might feel sorry. that is worth something; that is "meritorious." he cannot love god with all his heart and all his soul, and all his strength, but he can love him some. that is worth something; that is "meritorious." accordingly, when the rich young man asked the lord what he must do to gain heaven, the lord did not say, "believe in me, accept me for your personal savior, have faith in me," but he said: "if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." paul, likewise teaches that faith and love must cooperate in man, for "faith worketh by love." therefore, "faith in love and love in faith justify," but not faith alone. faith without works is dead and cannot justify. a live faith is a faith that has works to show as its credentials that it is real faith. hence, faith alone does not justify, but faith and works. love is the fulfilment of the law; faith works by love, hence, by the fulfilment of the law. therefore, faith alone does not justify, but faith plus the fulfilment of the law. in endless variations catholic writers thus seek to upset with scripture luther's teaching that man is justified by faith in christ alone, and that all the righteousness which a sinner can present before god without fear that it will be rejected is a borrowed righteousness, not his own work-righteousness. we might express a just surprise that catholics should be offended at the doctrine that the righteousness of christ is imputed, that is, reckoned or counted, to the sinner as his own. for, does not their system of indulgences rest on a theory of imputation? do they not, by selling from the treasure of the church the superabundant merits of christ and the saints to the sinner who has not a sufficient amount of them, make those merits the sinner's own by just such a process of imputation? they surely cannot infuse those merits into the sinner. but catholics probably object to the protestant imputation-teaching because that is too cheap and easy, and because protestant success has spoiled a lucrative catholic imputation-business.--this in passing. let the bible decided [tr. note: sic] whether luther was right in teaching justification by faith alone, by faith without works. what does the bible say about the condition of natural man after the fall? it says: "that which is born of the flesh is flesh," that is, corrupt (john , ); "the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth" (gen. , ); "they are all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one" (ps. , ); "who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one" (job , ); "there is here no difference; for all have sinned and come short of the glory of god (rom. , . ). what does the bible say about the powers of natural man after the fall in reference to spiritual matters? it says: "the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of god: for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" ( cor. , ); "ye were dead in trespasses and sins" (eph. , ); "the carnal mind," that is, the mind of flesh, the natural mind of man, "is enmity against god" (rom. , ); "without me"--jesus is the speaker--"ye can do nothing" john , ). what does the bible say about the value of man's works of righteousness performed by his natural powers? it says: "we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags" (is. , ); "a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit" (matt. , ). what does the bible say about man's ability to fulfil the law of god? it says: "cursed is he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them" (deut. , ) ; "whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all" (jas. , ) ; "what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, god, sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh" (rom. , ); "the law worketh wrath," that is, by convincing man that he has not fulfilled it and never will fulfil it, it rouses man's anger against god who has laid this unattainable law upon him (rom. , ). what does the bible say about the relation of christ to the law and to sin? it says: "god sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law, that he might redeem them that were under the law" (gal. , ); "christ is the end of the law 'for righteousness to every one that believeth" (rom. , ); "god hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteous of god in him" ( cor. , ); "christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law; being made a curse for us; for it is written, cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree" (gal. , ). what does the bible say about faith without works as a means of justification? it says: "we conclude that a man is justified by faith, without the deeds of the law" (rom. , ); "to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness" (rom. , ); "i rejoice in christ jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh, though i might also have confidence in the flesh. if any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, i more: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of israel, of the tribe of benjamin, an hebrew of the hebrews; as touching the law, a pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. [the speaker is the apostle paul.] but what things were gain to me, those i counted loss for christ. yea, doubtless; and i count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of christ jesus, my lord, for whom i have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that i may win christ and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of christ, the righteousness which is of god by faith" (phil. , - ) ; "if by grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace. but if it be of works, then is it no more grace; otherwise work is no more work" (rom. , ). (the catholic bible omits the last half of this text.) what does the bible say about faith being assurance of pardon and everlasting life? it says: "if god be for us, who can be against us? he that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? who shall lay anything to the charge of god's elect? it is god that justifieth. who is he that condemneth? it is christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of god, who also maketh intercession for us. who shall separate us from the love of christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. for i am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of god which is in christ jesus, our lord" (rom. , - ); "i know whom i have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which i have committed unto him against that day" ( tim. , ). here we rest our case. if luther was wrong in teaching the justification of the sinner by faith, without the deeds of the law, then paul was wrong, jesus christ was wrong, the apostles and prophets were wrong, the whole bible is wrong. catholics must square themselves to these texts before they dare to open their mouths against luther. if luther was a heretic, the lord jesus made him one, and he is making a heretic of every reader of the texts aforecited. rome will have to answer to him. but what about the answer of the lord to the rich young man? what about the commandment to be perfect? does not the doctrine of justification by faith alone, without the deeds of the law, abolish the holy and good law of god? not at all. when paul expounds to the galatians the doctrine of justification by faith as compared with justification by works, he arrays the law against the gospel, and raises this question: "is the law, then, against the promises of god?" his answer reveals the whole difficulty that attends every effort to obtain righteousness by fulfilling the law, he says: "god forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily, righteousness should have been by the law." (gal. , .) christ expressed the same truth when he said to the lawyer: "do this, and thou shalt live." (luke , .) the reason why the law makes no person righteous is not because it is not a sufficient rule or norm of good works by which men could earn eternal life, but because it does not furnish man any ability to achieve that righteousness which it demands. no law does that. the law only creates duties, and insists on their fulfilment under threat of punishment. it is not the function of the law to make doers of the law. originally the law was issued to men who were able to fulfil it, because they were created after the image of god, in perfect holiness and righteousness. that they lost this concreate [tr. note: sic] ability through the fall is no reason why god should change or abrogate his law. he purposes to help them in another way, by sending them his son for a redeemer, who fulfils the law in their stead. but this wonderful plan of god for the rescue of lost man is not appreciated by any one who still believes, as the catholics do, that he has some good powers in him left which he can develop with the help of god to such an extent that he can make himself righteous. to such a person jesus says to-day as he said to the rich young man: "keep the commandments!" that means, since you believe in your ability, proceed to employ it. your reward is sure, provided only you do what the law demands. but just as surely the curse of god rests on you if you do not do it. when you have become convinced that it is impossible to fulfil the law, you may ask a different question, a question which the knowledge of your spiritual disability has wrested from you as it did from the jailer at philippi: "what must i do to be saved?" and you will not receive the answer: "keep the commandments!" but: "believe in the lord jesus christ, and thou shalt be saved," (acts , . .) not a word will be said any more about anything that you must do. you will be told: all that you ought to have done has been accomplished by one who died with the exclamation: "it is finished!" (john , ), and who now sends his messengers abroad inviting men to his free salvation: "come, for all things are now ready!" (luke , .) "ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good" (is. , . .) when you have wearied yourself to death by your efforts to achieve righteousness, as paul did when he was still the pharisee saul of tarsus, as luther did while he was still in the bondage of popery, when you have become hot in your confused and despairing mind against god and the law, which you cannot fulfil, you will appreciate the voice that calls to you as it has called to millions before you: "come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and i will give you rest." (matt. , .) and if you are wise, then, with the wisdom which the spirit gives the children of god, you will not delay a minute, but come rejoicing that you need not get salvation by works, and will sing: just as i am, without one plea but that thy blood was shed for me, and that thou bidst me come to thee, o lamb of god, i come, i come! rome has cursed luther for teaching justification by faith, without the deeds of the law. the principles which he had timidly uttered in the theses led to bolder declarations later, when the full light of the blessed gospel had come to him. it brought him the curse of the pope in the bull _exsurge, domine!_ of june , . the following estimate by a recent catholic writer is a fair sample of the sentiments cherished by official rome for luther: "from out the vast number whom the enemy of man raised up to invent heresies, which, st. cyprian says, 'destroy faith and divide unity,' not one, or all together, ever equaled or surpassed martin luther in the wide range of his errors, the ferocity with which he promulgated them, and the harm he did in leading souls away from the church, the fountain of everlasting truth. the heresies of sabellius, arius, pelagius, and other rebellious men were insignificant as compared with those luther formulated and proclaimed four hundred years ago, and which, unfortunately, have ever since done service against the church of the living god. in luther most, if not all, former heresies meet, and reach their climax. to enumerate fully all the wicked, false, and perverse teachings of the arch-heretic would require a volume many times larger than the bible, and every one of the lies and falsehoods that have been used against the catholic church may be traced back to him as to their original formulator." the cause for this undisguised hatred of luther is chiefly luther's teaching of justification by faith, without works. in its sixth session the council of trent condemned the following doctrines: _on free will:_ canon iv: "if any one says that the free will of man, when moved and stirred by god, cannot, by giving assent, cooperate with god, who is stirring and calling man, so that he disposes and prepares himself for obtaining the grace of justification, or that he cannot dissent if he wills, but, like some inanimate thing, does absolutely nothing and is purely passive,--let him be accursed." _on justification:_ canon ix: "if any one says that the ungodly are justified by faith alone, in the sense that nothing else is required on their part that might cooperate to the end of obtaining the grace of justification, and that it is in no wise necessary that they be prepared and disposed (for this grace) by a movement of the will,--let him be accursed." canon xi: "if any one says that man is justified either by the imputation of the righteousness of christ alone or by the remission of his sins alone, without grace and love being diffused through his heart by the holy spirit and inhering therein, or that the grace whereby we are justified is merely the good will of god,--let him be accursed." canon xii: "if any one says that justifying faith is nothing else than trust in the divine mercy which forgives sins for christ's sake, or that it is this trust alone by which we are justified,--let him be accursed." canon xxiv: "if any one says that righteousness, after having been received, is not conserved nor augmented before god by good works, but that these works are merely the fruits or signs of the justification which one has obtained, and that they are not a reason why justification is increased,--let him be accursed." it is a well-known characteristic of the decrees of the council of trent that truth and error appear skilfully interwoven in them. they are like a double motion that is offered in a deliberative body: they contain things which one must affirm, and other things which one must negative. they cannot be voted on--many of them--except after a division of the question. they contain "riders" like those in a bill that comes before a legislative body: in order to pass the bill at all, the "rider" must be passed along with the bill. but enough crops out in these decrees to show that the catholic church is not willing to let the merits of christ be regarded as the only thing that justifies the sinner. he must cooperate with the holy spirit to the end of being justified. he must prepare and dispose himself for receiving justifying grace, and this grace is infused into him, and manifests itself in holy movements of the heart and by good works, in acts of love. the roman catholic christian is taught to believe that he is justified partly by what christ has done, partly by what he himself is doing. he cannot subscribe to paul's statement: "by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of god; not of works, lest any man should boast." (eph. , . .) nor is his justification ever complete, because his love is never perfect. it must be increased even after his death. the roman purgatory contains sinners whom god had justified as far as he could, the sinners remaining in arrears with their, part of the contract. accordingly, the sinner can never have the assurance that he will enter heaven. it would be presumptuous for him to think so. he must live on and work on at his poor dying rate, and hope for the best. this teaching of the church of rome subverts christianity. it strikes at the root of the faith that saves. it is a relapse into paganism and an affront offered to the savior. it borrows the language of scripture to express the most hideous error. by this teaching rome does not drive men into purgatory,--which does not exist,--but into hell. it is only by a miracle of divine grace that sinners are saved where such teaching prevails: they must forget what is told them about the necessity of their own works and cling only to the redeemer, and must thus practically repudiate the teaching of their church. some do this, and escape the pernicious consequences of the error of their church. all of them will rise up in the judgment to accuse their teachers of a heresy the worst imaginable. rome has, indeed, assailed "the article with which the church either stands or falls." all its other errors, crass, grotesque, and repulsive though they are, are mere child's play in comparison with this damning and destructive error of justification by works. luther rightly estimated the virulence of this abysmal heresy when he said that those who attacked his teaching of justification by grace through faith alone were aiming at his throat. rome's teaching on justification is an attempt to strike at the vitals of christian faith and life. it sinks the dagger into the heart of christianity. . the fatalist luther. catholic writers have discovered a fatalistic tendency in luther's teaching of justification by faith without works. they declare that luther's theory of the utter depravity of man by reason of inherited sin and his incapacity to perform any work that can be accounted good in the sight of god kills every ambition to virtuous living in man. they argue that when you tell a person that he is not capable to do good, he is apt to believe you and make no effort to perform a good deed. the situation becomes still worse when the divine predestination is introduced at this point, as has been done, they say, by luther. if god has determined all things beforehand by a sovereign decree, if there really is no such thing as human choice, and all things occur according to a foreordained plan, man no longer has any responsibility. he is reduced to an automaton. free will is denied him; he cannot elect by voluntary choice to engage in any god-pleasing action; for he is told that his natural reason is blinded by sin and his understanding darkened, rendering it impossible for him to discern good and evil, and leading him constantly into errors of judgment on what is right or wrong, while he is made to believe that his will is enslaved by evil lusts and passions, ever prone to wickedness and averse to godliness. as a consequence, it is claimed, man must necessarily become morally indifferent: he will not fight against sin nor follow after righteousness, because he has become convinced that it is useless for him to make any effort either in the one direction or in the other. the doctrine of man's natural depravity and the divine foreordination of all things, it is held, must drive man either to despair, insanity, and suicide, or land him hopelessly in fatalism: he will simply continue his physical life in a mechanical way, like a brute or a plant; he merely vegetates. these fatal tendencies which are charged against luther are refuted by no one more effectually than by luther himself. as regards the doctrine of original sin and man's natural depravity, luther preached that with apostolic force and precision. that doctrine is a bible-doctrine. no person has read his bible aright, no expounder of scripture has begun to explain the divine plan of salvation for sinners, if he has failed to find this teaching in the bible. this doctrine is, indeed, extremely humiliating to the pride of man; it opens up appalling views of the misery of the human race under sin. we can understand why men would want to get away from this doctrine. but no one confers any benefit on men by minimizing the importance of the bible-teaching, or by weakening the statements of scripture regarding this matter. any teaching which admits the least good quality in man by which he can prepare or dispose himself so as to induce god to view him with favor is a contradiction of the passages of scripture which were cited in a previous chapter, and works a delusion upon men that will prove just as fatal as when a physician withholds from his patient the full knowledge of his critical condition. yea, it is worse; for a physician who is not frank and sincere to his patient may deprive the latter of his physical life, but the teacher of god's word who instils in men false notions of their moral and spiritual power robs them of life eternal. luther avoided this error. he led men to a true estimate of themselves as they are by nature. but over and against the fell power of sin he magnified the greater power of divine grace. "where sin abounded, grace hath much more abounded" (rom. , ),--along this line luther found the solution for the awful difficulty which confronts every man when he studies the bible-doctrine of original sin, and when he discovers, moreover, that this bible-doctrine is borne out fully by his own experience. just for this reason, because man can do nothing to restore himself to the divine favor, god by his grace proposes to do all, and has sent his son in the likeness of sinful flesh to do all, and, last not least, publishes the fact that all has been done in the gospel of the forgiveness of sin by grace through faith in christ. luther has taught men to confess: "i believe that i cannot by my own reason or strength believe in jesus christ or come to him," but he taught them also to follow up this true confession with the other: "the holy ghost has called me by the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith." the gospel is called in the scriptures "the word of life," not only because it speaks of the life everlasting which god has prepared for his children, but also because it gives life. it approaches man, dead in trespasses and sins, and quickens him into new life. it removes from the mind of man its natural blindness and from the will of man its innate impotency. it regenerates all the dead powers of the soul, and makes man walk in newness of life. the difficulty which original sin has created is not greater than the means and instruments which god has provided for coping with it. "god hath concluded all in unbelief, that he might have mercy on all." (rom. , .) this is the only true salvation, every other is fictitious. it teaches man both to face the fearful odds against him because of his corruption, and to relish all the more the points in his favor by reason of god's redeeming and regenerating grace. it starts its work with crushing man's pride and self-confidence utterly, and hurling him into the abyss of despair, but it lifts him out of despair with a mighty power that breaks the power of evil in him. this change is brought about in such a gentle, tender way that the sinner has no sensation of being coerced into the new life by some farce which he cannot resist. it wins him over to god and his christ in spite of his resistance, and makes out of his unwilling heart a willing one, which gladly coincides with the leadings of grace. the roman scheme of salvation might be called the ostrich method: it teaches men the foolish strategy of the bird of the desert, which hides its head in the sand when it sees an enemy approaching, and then imagines the enemy does not exist. original sin may be disputed out of the bible by a false interpretation, but it is not thereby ruled out of existence. when face to face with his god--if no sooner, then in the hour of death--every man feels that he is utterly corrupt and worthless, and he will curse any teacher that caused him to believe otherwise. free will is not created by assertions. let the apostles of free will only try, and they will find out that their freedom is nil. catholics denounce luther for having declared the free will of man to be nothing than a word without substance: we hear the sound when the word is pronounced, and grasp its grammatical meaning, but we do not realize it in ourselves. every person, however, who has truly come to know himself will side with luther, or rather with the bible. furthermore, to the same extent to which the roman view exalts man's natural powers for good, it lowers and limits the work of christ and the holy spirit, and begets a false confidence and security that is rudely shaken when the first slip and fall occurs in the person's christian life. he has never really laid hold of the grace of god, because he has not been taught to trust only to the grace of god to lead and preserve him in the way of life. he will begin to distrust the gospel as a very inefficient instrument, and this will lead him to become indifferent to it, and finally fall away from it entirely. a real danger of apostasy and despair exists wherever the roman dogma of man's natural free will is proclaimed. it is, however, doing luther a flagrant injustice when he is made to deny that man has no longer any natural reason and will in the secular affairs of this life. luther used to divide the entire life of man into two hemispheres, the upper embracing man's relation to god, holy things, the interests of the soul here and hereafter, and the lower, embracing the purely human, temporal, and secular interests of man. it is only in the higher hemisphere that luther denies the existence of free will. throughout his writings luther asserts the existence, the actual operation, and the necessity of human free will, though sadly weakened by sin, in the affairs of this present life. it will be sufficient to cite as evidence the augsburg confession which was drawn up with luther's aid and submitted to emperor charles v in as the joint belief of luther and his followers. "of the freedom of the will," say the protestant confessors, "they teach that man's will has some liberty for the attainment of civil righteousness and for the choice of things subject to reason. nevertheless, it has not power, without the holy ghost, to work the righteousness of god, that is, spiritual righteousness, since the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of god ( cor. , ); but this righteousness is wrought in the heart when the holy ghost is received through the word. these things are said in as many words by augustine in his _hypognosticon_ (book iii): 'we grant that all men have a certain freedom of will in judging according to natural reason; not such freedom, however, whereby it is capable, without god, either to begin, much less to complete aught in things pertaining to god, but only in works of this life, whether good or evil. "good" i call those works which spring from the good in nature, that is, to have a will to labor in the field, to eat and drink, to have a friend, to clothe oneself, to build a house, to marry, to keep cattle, to learn divers useful arts, or whatsoever good pertains to this life, none of which things are without dependence on the providence of god; yea, of him and through him they are and have their beginning. "evil" i call such things as, to have a will to worship an idol, to commit murder,' etc." (art. .) luther has always held that there is a natural intelligence and wisdom, a natural will-power and energy which men employ in their daily occupations, their trades and professions, their trade and commerce, their literature and art, their culture and refinement, yea, that there is also a natural knowledge of god even among the gentiles, who yet "know not god," and a seeming performance of the things which god has commanded. but these natural abilities do not reach into the higher hemisphere; they cannot pass muster at the bar of divine justice. they do not spring from right motives, nor do they aim at right ends; they are determined by man's self-interest. they come short of that glory which god ought to receive from worshipers in spirit and in truth (rom. , ; john , ); they are evil in as far as they are the corrupt fruits of corrupt trees. in condemning the moral quality of these natural works of civil righteousness, luther has said no more than christ and his apostles have said. luther taught the bible-doctrine that there is in god a hidden will which he has reserved to his majesty (dent. ); that his judgments are unsearchable and his ways past finding out (rom. , ); that not even a sparrow falls to the ground without his will, and that the very hairs of our head are numbered (matt. , . ); that no evil can occur anywhere without his permission (amos , ; is. , ). to deny these truths is to reject the bible and to destroy the sovereign omniscience and omnipotence of god. those who attack luther for believing that also the evil in this world is related to god will have to change their bill of indictment: their charge is really directed against scripture. luther has, however, warned men not to attempt a study of this secret will of god, for the plain reason that it is secret, and it would be blasphemous presumption to try and find it out. all our dealings with god must be on the basis of his revealed will. if we only will study that, we will be fully occupied our whole life. as regards the scriptural doctrine of predestination, that those who ultimately attain to the life everlasting have been chosen to that end, luther has warned men not to study this doctrine outside of christ and the gospel. god has told his children for their comfort amid the vicissitudes of this life that he has secured their eternal happiness against all dangers, but he has not asked them, nor does he permit them, to find out _a priori_ whether this or that person is elect. jesus christ is the book of life in which the elect are to find their names recorded, and in the general way of salvation through repentance, faith, and sanctification of life they are to be led to the heritage of the saints in light. in his summary of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters of romans, luther states that by his eternal election god has taken our salvation entirely out of our hands and placed it in his own hands. "and this is most highly necessary. for we are so feeble and fickle that, if salvation depended upon us, not a person would be saved; the devil would overcome them all. but since god is reliable and his election cannot fail or be thwarted by any one, we still have hope over and against sin. but at this point a limit must be fixed for the presumptuous spirits who soar too high. they lead their reason first to this subject, they start at the pinnacle, they want to explore first the abyss of the divine election, and wrestle vainly with the question whether they are elect. these people bring about their own overthrow: they are either driven to despair or become reckless.--follow the order of this epistle: first, occupy yourself with christ and the gospel, in order that you may learn to know your sin and his grace; next, begin to wrestle with your sin, as chapters - teach you to do. then, after you have reached the doctrine concerning crosses and tribulations in the eighth chapter, you will rightly learn the doctrine of election in chapters - , because you will realize what a comfort this doctrine contains. for the doctrine of election can be studied without injury and secret anger against god only by those who have passed through suffering, crosses, and anguish of death. accordingly, the old adam in you must be dead before you can bear this subject and drink this strong wine. see that you do not drink wine while you are still a babe. there is a proper time, age, and manner for propounding the various doctrines of god to men." what is there fatalistic about this? . luther a teacher of lawlessness. luther's teaching on the forgiveness of sin is sternly rebuked by catholic writers because of its immoral tendencies. they say, when the forgiveness of sins is made as easy as luther makes it, the people will cease being afraid if sinning. the danger of the gospel of the gracious forgiveness of sins being misapplied has always existed in the church. every student of church history knows this. catholic writers know this. paul wrestled with this practical perversion of the loving intentions of our heavenly father in his day. after declaring to the romans: "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound," he raises the question: "what shall we say then? shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" he returns this horrified answer: "god forbid! how shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" (rom. , - , .) actually there were people in the apostle's days who drew from his evangelical teaching this pernicious inference, that by sinning they gave the forgiving grace of god a larger opportunity to exert itself, hence, that they were glorifying grace by committing more sin. this meant putting a premium on sinning. for god's sake, how can you conceive a thought like that? the apostle exclaims. he repudiates the idea as blasphemous, which it is. to sin in the assurance that sin will be forgiven is not honoring, but dishonoring god and his grace; it is not exalting, but traducing faith; it is not christian, but devilish. summarizing the contents of romans, chapter , luther says: "in the fifth chapter paul comes to speak of the fruits and works of faith, such as peace, joy, love of god and all men, and in addition to these, security, boldness, cheerfulness, courage and hope amid tribulations and suffering. all these effects follow where there is genuine faith, because of the superabundant blessing which god has conferred upon us in christ by causing him to die for us before we could pray that he might do this, yea, while we were yet his enemies. accordingly, we conclude that faith justifies without works of any kind, and yet it does not follow that we must not do any good works. genuine good works cannot fail to flow from faith,--works of which the self-righteous know nothing, and in the place of which they invent their own works, in which there is neither peace, joy, security, love, hope, boldness, nor any other of the characteristics of a genuine christian work and faith." in his preface to romans, luther meets a somewhat different objection to faith: christians, after they have begun to believe, still discover sin in themselves, and on account of this imagine that faith alone cannot save them. there must be something done in addition to believing to insure their salvation. in replying to this scruple, luther has given a classical description of the quality and power of faith. this description serves to blast the catholic charge that luther's easy way of justifying the sinner leads to increased sinning. luther says: "faith is not the human notion and dream which some regard as faith. when they observe that no improvement of life nor any good works flow from faith even where people hear and talk much about faith, they fall into this error that they declare: faith is not sufficient, you must do works if you wish to become godly and be saved. the reason is, these people, when they hear the gospel, hurriedly formulate by their own powers a thought in their heart which asserts: i believe. this thought they regard as genuine faith. however, as their faith is but a human figment and idea that never reaches the bottom of the heart, it is inert and effects no improvement. genuine faith, however, is a divine work in us by which we are changed and born anew of god. (john , .) it slays the old adam, and makes us entirely new men in our heart, mind, ideas, and all our powers. it brings us the holy spirit. oh, this faith is a lively, active, busy, mighty thing! it is impossible for faith not to be active without ceasing. faith does not ask whether good works are to be done, but before the question has been asked, it has accomplished good works; yea, it is always engaged in doing good works. whoever does not do such good works is void of faith; he gropes and mopes about, looking for faith and good works, but knows neither what faith nor what good works are, though he may prate and babble ever so much about faith and good works." there has never been a time when the gospel and the grace of god have not been wrested to wicked purposes by insincere men, hypocrites, and bold spirits. for this reason god has instructed christians: "give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you." (matt. , .) the danger of misapplied grace is a present-day danger in every evangelical community. earnest christian ministers and laymen strive with this misapplication wherever they discover it. can they do any more? rome will say: why do you not do as we do in our church? we do not preach the gospel in such a reckless fashion, we make men work for their salvation. rome would abolish or considerably limit the preaching of free and abundant grace to the sinner. we recoil from this suggestion because it makes the entire work of christ of none effect, and wipes out the grandest portions of our bible. if every abuse of something that is good must be stopped by abolishing the proper use, then let us give up eating because some make gluttons of themselves; drinking, because some are drunkards; wearing clothes, because there is much vanity in dresses; marriage, because some marriages are shamefully conducted, etc., etc. the roman church does not operate on evangelical principles. does it succeed better in cultivating true holiness among its members by its system of penances and its teaching of the meritoriousness of men's acts of piety? catholics say to us sneeringly: it is easy to have faith; it is very convenient, when you wish to indulge, or have indulged, some passion, to remember that there is grace for forgiveness. but is any great difficulty connected with going through a penance that the priest has imposed, buying a wax candle, reciting sixteen paternosters and ten ave marias, and then sitting down and saying to yourself: "good boy! you've done it, you have squared your account again with the almighty"? what sanctifying virtue lies in abstaining from beefsteak on friday? rome nowhere has improved men by her mechanical piety. what she has accomplished was made possible by the fear of purgatorial torments, by slavish dread of her mysterious powers, by ambition and bigotry. we would not exchange our abused treasures for her system of workmongery. but the catholic charge of tendencies to lawlessness that are said to be contained in. luther's teaching of faith without works are more serious. luther is cited by them as declaring that one may commit innumerable sins, and they will not harm one as long as one keeps on believing in the grace of forgiveness. it is true, luther has spoken words to this effect, and that, on quite a number of occasions. worse than that, what luther has said is actually true. as a matter of fact, no sin can deprive the believer of salvation. there is only one sin that ultimately damns, final impenitence and unbelief, by which is understood the rejection of the atonement which christ offered for the sins of the world. that atonement is actually the full satisfaction rendered to our judge for all the sins which we have done, are doing, and will be doing till the end of our lives. for the person that dies a perfect saint, sinless and impeccable, is still to be born. the comfort that i derive from my redeemer to-day will be my comfort to-morrow, that will be my only prop and stay in my dying hour. i shall need him every hour. this is a perfectly christian thought. st. john writes: "my little children, these things write i unto you that ye sin not. and if any man sin,"-- mark this well: "if any man sin," though he ought not to sin,--what does the apostle say to him? he does not say: then you are damned! or: it will require so many fasts, masses, and candles to restore you! but this is what he says: "if any man sin, we have an advocate with the father, jesus christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." ( john , . .) john, then, must be included in the catholic indictment of luther. luther would not have been a preacher of the genuine and full gospel if he had not declared the impossibility of any sin or any number of sins depriving a believer of salvation. but if the catholics mean to say that luther's evangelical declaration means that no believer can fall from grace by sinning, that he may sin and remain in a state of grace,--that is simply slander. luther holds, indeed, that a person does not cease to be a christian by every slip and fault, but he insists that no dereliction of duty, no deviation from the rule of godly living can be treated with indifference. it must be repented of, god's forgiveness must be sought, and only in this way will the holy spirit again be bestowed on the sinner. god may bear awhile with a christian who has fallen into sin, but the backslider has no pleasant time with his god while he stays a backslider. this being a question of every-day, practical christianity, luther frequently touches this subject in his sermons, both in the church postil, the house postil, and in his occasional sermons. luther's catholic critics could disabuse their mind about the tendencies to lawlessness in luther's teaching if they would look up references such as these: , . f.; , ; , . ; , ; , . . in one of these references ( , ) luther comments on john , : "whosoever abideth in him sinneth not; whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him," as follows: "'seeing' and 'knowing' in the phraseology of john is as much as believing. `that every one which seeth the son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life' (john , ). 'this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true god, and jesus christ, whom thou hast sent.' accordingly, he that sins does not believe in him; for faith and sin cannot coexist. we may fall, but we may not cling to sin. the kingdom of christ is a kingdom of righteousness, not of sin." in the smalcald articles luther says: "but if certain sectarists would arise, some of whom are perhaps already present, and in the time of the insurrection of the peasants came to my view, holding that all those who have once received the spirit or the forgiveness of sins, or have become believers, even though they would afterwards sin, would still remain in the faith, and sin would not injure them, and cry thus: 'do whatever you please; if you believe, it is all nothing; faith blots out all sins,' etc. they say, besides, that if any one sins after he has received faith and the spirit, he never truly had the spirit and faith. i have seen and heard of many men so insane, and i fear that such a devil is still remaining in some. if, therefore, i say, such persons would hereafter also arise, it is necessary to know and teach that if saints who still have and feel original sin, and also daily repent and strive with it, fall in some way into manifest sins, as david into adultery, murder, and blasphemy, they cast out faith and the holy ghost. for the holy ghost does not permit sin to have dominion, to gain the upper hand so as to be completed, but represses and restrains it so that it must not do what it wishes. but if it do what it wishes, the holy ghost and faith are not there present. for st. john says ( . ep. , ): 'whosoever is born of god doth not commit sin, . . . and he cannot sin.' and yet that is also the truth which the same st. john says ( . ep. , ): 'if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.'" (part iii, art. , §§ - ; p. .) the lutheran church has received this statement of luther into her confessional writings. this is the luther of whom a modern catholic critic says: "this thought of the all-forgiving nature of faith so dominated his mind that it excluded the notion of contrition, penance, good works, or effort on the part of the believer, and thus his teaching destroyed root and branch the whole idea of human culpability and responsibility for the breaking of the commandments." it is amazing boldness in catholics to prefer this charge against luther, when they themselves teach a worse doctrine than they impute to luther. the council of trent in its sixth session, canon , also in its sixteenth session, canon , coster in his enchiridion, in the chapter on faith, p. , bellarminus on justification, chapter , declare it to be catholic teaching that the believer cannot lose his faith by any, even the worst, sin he may commit. they speak of believing fornicators, believing adulterers, believing thieves, believing misers, believing drunkards, believing slanderers, etc. the very teaching which catholics falsely ascribe to luther is an accepted dogma of their own church. their charge against luther is, at best, the trick of crying, "hold thief!" to divert attention from themselves. but did not luther in the plainest terms advise his friends weller and melanchthon to practise immoralities as a means for overcoming their despondency? is he not reported in his table talk to have said that looking at a pretty woman or taking a hearty drink would dispel gloomy thoughts? that one should sin to spite the devil? yes; and now that these matters are paraded in public, it is best that the public be given a complete account of what luther wrote to weller and melanchthon. there are three letters extant written to weller during luther's exile at castle coburg while the diet of augsburg was in progress. on june , , luther writes: "grace and peace in christ! i have received two letters from you, my dear jerome [this was weller's first name], both of which truly delighted me; the second, however, was more than delightful because in that you write concerning my son johnny, stating that you are his teacher, and that he is an active and diligent pupil. if i could, i would like to show you some favor in return; christ will recompense you for what i am too little able to do. magister veit has, moreover, informed me that you are at times afflicted with the spirit of despondency. this affliction is most harmful to young people, as scripture says: 'a broken spirit drieth the bones' (prov. , ). the holy spirit everywhere forbids such melancholy, as, for instance, in eccles. ., : 'rejoice, o young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth,' and in the verse immediately following: 'remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh.' ecclesiasticus, likewise, says, chap. , - : 'the gladness of the heart is the life of man, and the joyfulness of a man prolongeth his days. love thine own soul, and comfort thy heart, remove sorrow far from the; for sorrow hath killed many, and there is no profit therein. envy and wrath shorten the life, and carefulness bringeth age before the time. a cheerful and good heart will have a care of his meat and diet.' moreover, paul says cor. , : 'the sorrow of the world worketh death.' above all, therefore, you must firmly cling to this thought, that these evil and melancholy thoughts are not of god, but of the devil; for god is not a god of melancholy, but a god of comfort and gladness, as christ himself says: 'god is not the god of the dead, but of the living' (matt. , ). what else does living mean than to be glad in the lord? accordingly, become used to different thoughts, in order to drive away these evil thoughts, and say: the lord has not sent you. this chiding which you experience is not of him who has called you. in the beginning the struggle is grievous, but by practise it becomes more easy. you are not the only one who has to endure such thoughts, all the saints were afflicted by them, but they fought against them and conquered. therefore, do not yield to these evils, but meet them bravely. the greatest task in this struggle is not to regard these thoughts, not to explore them, not to pursue the matters suggested, but despise them like the hissing of a goose and pass them by. the person that has learned to do this will conquer; whoever has not learned it will be conquered. for to muse upon these thoughts and debate with them means to stimulate them and make them stronger. take the people of israel as an example: they overcame the serpents, not by looking at them and wrestling with them, but by turning their eyes away from them and looking in a different direction, namely, at the brazen serpent, and they conquered. in this struggle that is the right and sure way of winning the victory. a person afflicted with such thoughts said to a certain wise man: what evil thoughts come into my mind! he received the answer: well, let them pass out again. that remark taught the person a fine lesson. another answered the same question thus: you cannot keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building their nests in your hair. accordingly, you will do the correct thing when you are merry and engage in some pleasant pastime with some one, and not scruple afterwards over having done so. for god is not pleased with sadness, for which there is no reason. the sorrow over our sins is brief and at the same time is made pleasant to us by the promise of grace and the forgiveness of sins. but the other sorrow is of the devil and without promise; it is sheer worry over useless and impossible things which concern god. i shall have more to say to you when i return. meanwhile give my greetings to your brother; i began writing to him, but the messenger who is to take this letter along is in a hurry. i shall write to him later, also to schneidewein and others. i commend your pupil to you. may the spirit of christ comfort and gladden your heart! amen.' ( a, ff.) the second letter to weller was presumably written some time in july. it reads as follows: "grace and peace in christ. my dearest jerome, you must firmly believe that your affliction is of the devil, and that you are plagued in this manner because you believe in christ. for you see that the most wrathful enemies of the gospel, as, for instance, eck, zwingli, and others, are suffered to be at ease and happy. all of us who are christians must have the devil for our adversary and enemy, as peter says: 'your adversary, the devil, goeth about,' etc., pet. , . dearest jerome, you must rejoice over these onslaughts of the devil, because they are a sure sign that you have a gracious and merciful god. you will say: this affliction is more grievous than i can bear; you fear that you will be overcome and vanquished, so that you are driven to blasphemy and despair. i know these tricks of satan: if he cannot overcome the person whom he afflicts at the first onset, he seeks to exhaust and weaken him by incessantly attacking him, in order that the person may succumb and acknowledge himself beaten. accordingly, whenever this affliction befalls you, beware lest you enter into an argument with the devil, or muse upon these death-dealing thoughts. for this means nothing else than to yield to the devil and succumb to him. you must rather take pains to treat these thoughts which the devil instils in you with the severest contempt. in afflictions and conflicts of this kind contempt is the best and easiest way for overcoming the devil. make up your mind to laugh at your adversary, and find some one whom you can engage in a conversation. you must by all means avoid being alone, for then the devil will make his strongest effort to catch you; he lies in wait for you when you are alone. in a case like this the devil is overcome by scorning and despising him, not by opposing him and arguing with him. my dear jerome, you must engage in merry talk and games with my wife and the rest, so as to defeat these devilish thoughts, and you must be intent on being cheerful. this affliction is more necessary to you than food and drink. i shall relate to you what happened to me when i was about your age. when i entered the cloister, it happened that at first i always walked about sad and melancholy, and could not shake off my sadness. accordingly, i sought counsel and confessed to dr. staupitz, --i am glad to mention this man's name. i opened my heart to him, telling him with what horrid and terrible thoughts i was being visited. he said in reply: martin, you do not know how useful and necessary this affliction is to you; for god does not exercise you thus without a purpose. you will see that he will employ you as his servant to accomplish great things by you. this came true. for i became a great doctor--i may justly say this of myself--; but at the time when i was suffering these afflictions i would never have believed that this could come to pass. no doubt, that is what is going to happen to you: you will become a great man. in the mean time be careful to keep a brave and stout heart, and impress on your mind this thought that such remarks which fall from the lips chiefly of learned and great men contain a prediction and prophecy. i remember well how a certain party whom i was comforting for the loss of his son said to me: martin, you will see, you will become a great man. i often remembered this remark, for, as i said, such remarks contain a prediction and a prophecy. therefore, be cheerful and brave, and cast these exceedingly terrifying thoughts entirely from you. whenever the devil worries you with these thoughts, seek the company of men at once, or drink somewhat more liberally, jest and play some jolly prank, or do anything exhilarating. occasionally a person must drink somewhat more liberally, engage in plays, and jests, or even commit some little sin from hatred and contempt of the devil, so as to leave him no room for raising scruples in our conscience about the most trifling matters. for when we are overanxious and careful for fear that we may be doing wrong in any matter, we shall be conquered. accordingly, if the devil should say to you: by all means, do not drink! you must tell him: just because you forbid it, i shall drink, and that, liberally. in this manner you must always do the contrary of what satan forbids. when i drink my wine unmixed, prattle with the greatest unconcern, eat more frequently, do you think that i have any other reason for doing these things than to scorn and spite the devil who has attempted to spite and scorn me? would god i could commit some real brave sin to ridicule the devil, that he might see that i acknowledge no sin and am not conscious of having committed any. we must put the whole law entirely out of our eyes and hearts,--we, i say, whom the devil thus assails and torments. whenever the devil charges us with our sins and pronounces us guilty of death and hell, we ought to say to him: i admit that i deserve death and hell; what, then, will happen to me? why, you will be eternally damned! by no means; for i know one who has suffered and made satisfaction for me. his name is jesus christ, the son of god. where he abides, there will i also abide." ( a, ff.) the third letter to weller is dated august th. it reads as follows: "grace and peace in christ. i have forgotten, my dear jerome, what i wrote you in my former letter concerning the spirit of melancholy, and i may now be writing you the same things and harping on the same string. nevertheless, i shall repeat what i said, because we all share each other's afflictions, and as i am suffering in your behalf, so you, no doubt, are suffering in mine. it is one and the same adversary that hates and persecutes every individual brother of christ. moreover, we are one body, and in this body one member suffers for every other member, and that, for the sole reason that we worship christ. thus it happens that one is forced to bear the other's burden. see, then, that you learn to despise your adversary. for you have not sufficiently learned to understand this spirit, who is an enemy to spiritual gladness. you may rest assured that you are not the only one who bears this cross and are not suffering alone. we are all bearing it with you and are suffering with you. god, who commanded: 'thou shalt not kill,' certainly declares by this commandment that he is opposed to these melancholy and death-bringing thoughts, and that he, on the contrary, would have us cherish lively and exceedingly cheerful thoughts. so the psalmist declares, saying: 'in his favor is life,' ps. , [luther understands this to mean: he favors life] and in ezekiel god says: 'i have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live' (chap. , ). on the other hand, etc. now, then, since it is certain that such melancholy is displeasing to god, we have this reliable comfort that if this demon cannot be entirely removed from us, divine strength will be supplied to us, so that we may not feel the affliction so much. i know that it is not in our power to remove these thoughts at our option, but i also know that they shall not gain the upper hand; for we are told: 'he shall not suffer the righteous to be moved,' if we only learn to cast our burden upon him. the lord jesus, the mighty warrior and unconquerable victor, will be your aid. amen." ( a, f.) these three letters constitute the whole evidence for the catholic charge against luther that he offered advice to weller that is immoral and demoralizing. the indictment culminates in these three distinct points: luther advises weller . to drink freely and be frivolous; . to commit sin to spite the devil; . to have no regard for the ten commandments. since we shall take up the last point in a separate chapter, we limit our remarks to the first two points. when luther advises weller to drink somewhat more liberally, that does not mean that luther advises weller to get drunk. this, however, is exactly what luther is made to say by his catholic critics. they make no effort to understand the situation as it confronted luther, but pounce upon a remark that can easily be understood to convey an offensive meaning. neither does what luther says about his own drinking mean that he ever got drunk. we have spoken of this matter in a previous chapter, and do not wish to repeat. luther's remarks about jesting, merry plays, and jolly pranks in which he would have weller engage are likewise vitiated by the catholic insinuation that he advises indecent frivolities, yea, immoralities. why, all the merriment which he urges upon weller is to take place in luther's home and family circle, in the presence of luther's wife and children, in the presence of weller's little pupil hans, who at that time was about four years old. the friends of the family members of the faculty at the university, ministers, students who either stayed at luther's home, like weller, or frequently visited there, are also included in this circle whose company weller is urged to seek. imagine a young man coming into this circle drunk, or half drunk, and disporting himself hilariously before the company! we believe that not even all catholics can be made to believe the insinuations of their writers against luther when all the facts in the case are presented to them. let us, moreover, remind ourselves once more that, to measure the social proprieties of the sixteenth century by modern standards, is unfair. a degree of culture in regard to manners and speech can be reached by very refined people that grows away from naturalness. the old latin saying: _naturalia non sunt turpia_ (we need not feel ashamed of our natural acts), will never lose its force. there are expressions in luther's writings--and in the bible--that nowadays are considered unchaste, but are in themselves chaste and pure. even the extremest naturalness that speaks with brutal frankness about certain matters is a better criterion of moral purity than the supersensitive prudishness that squirms and blushes, or pretends to blush, at the remotest reference to such matters. it all depends on the thoughts which the heart connects with the words which the mouth utters. this applies also to the manner in which former centuries have spoken about drinking. we sometimes begin to move uneasily, as if something pecksniffian had come into our presence, when we behold the twentieth century sitting in judgment on the manners and morals of the sixteenth century. in luther's remarks about sinning to spite the devil we have always heard an echo from his life at the cloister. one's judgment about the monastic life is somewhat mitigated when one hears how dr. staupitz and the brethren in the convent at erfurt would occasionally speak to luther about the latter's sins. staupitz called them "puppensuenden." it is not easy to render this term by a short and apt english term; "peccadillo" would come near the meaning. a child playing with a doll will treat it as if it were a human being, will dress it, talk to it, and pretend to receive answers from it, etc. that is the way, good catholics were telling luther, he was treating his sins. his sins were no real sins, or he had magnified their sinfulness out of all proportion. this same advice luther hands on to another who was becoming a hypochondriac as he had been. when the mind is in a morbid state it imagines faults, errors, sins, where there are none. the melancholy person in his self-scrutiny becomes an intolerant tyrant to himself. he will flay his poor soul for trifles as if they were the blackest crimes: in such moments the devil is very busy about the victim of gloom and despair. luther has diagnosed the case of weller with the skill of a nervous specialist. he counsels weller not to judge himself according to the devil's prompting, and, in order to break satan's thrall over him, to wrench himself free from his false notions of what is sinful. in offering this advice, luther uses such expressions as: "sin, commit sin," but the whole context shows that he advises weller to do that which is in itself not sinful, but looks like sin to weller in his present condition. when luther declares he would like to commit a real brave sin himself as a taunt to the devil, he adds: "would that i could!" that means, that, as a matter of fact, he could not do it and did not do it, because it was wrong. what bold immoral act did weller commit in consequence of luther's advice? what immoralities are there in luther's own life? luther's letters did not convey the meaning to his morbid young friend that catholic writers think and claim they did. luther's advice to melanchthon which is so revolting to catholics that they have made it the slogan in their campaign against luther refers to a state of affairs that is identical with what we noted in our review of the correspondence with weller. it is contained in a letter which luther wrote august , , while he was an exile in the wartburg. he says to his despondent friend and colleague at the university of wittenberg: "if you are a preacher of grace, do not preach a fictitious, but the true grace. if grace is of the true sort, you will also have to bear true, not fictitious, sins. god does not save those who only acknowledge themselves sinners in a feigned manner. be a sinner, then, and sin bravely, but believe more bravely still and rejoice in christ, who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. we must sin as long as we are in this world; the present life is not an abode of righteousness; however, we look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, says peter ( . ep. , ). we are satisfied, by the richness of god's glory, to have come to the knowledge of the lamb that taketh away the sins of the world. no sin shall wrest us from him, were we even in one day to commit fornication and manslaughter a thousand times. do you think the price paltry and the payment small that has been made for us by this great lamb?" ( , .) "be a sinner, and sin bravely, but believe more bravely still"--this is the _chef d'oeuvre_ of the muck-rakers in luther's life. the reader has the entire passage which contains the outrageous statement of luther before him, and will be able to judge the connection in which the words occur. what caused luther to write those words? did melanchthon contemplate some crime which he was too timid to perpetrate? according to the horrified expressions of catholics that must have been the situation. luther, in their view, says to melanchthon: philip, you are a simpleton. why scruple about a sin? you are still confined in the trammels of very narrow-minded moral views. you must get rid of them. have the courage to be wicked, make a hero of yourself by executing some bold piece of iniquity. be an "uebermensch." sin with brazen unconcern; be a fornicator, a murderer, a liar, a thief, defy every moral statute, --only do not forget to believe in the lord jesus christ. his grace is intended, not for hesitating, craven sinners, but for audacious, spirited, high-minded criminals. this, we are asked to believe, is the sentiment of the same luther who in his correspondence with weller declares that he could not if he would commit a brave sin to spite the devil. can the reader induce himself to believe that luther advised melanchthon to do what he himself knew was a moral impossibility to himself because of his relation to god? and again we put the question which we put in connection with the weller letters: what brave sin did melanchthon actually commit upon being thus advised by luther? one glance at the context, a calm reflection upon the tenor of this entire passage in the letter to melanchthon, suffices to convince every unbiased reader that luther is concerned about melanchthon as he was about weller: he fears his young colleague is becoming a prey to morbid self-incrimination. it is again a case of "puppensuenden" being expanded till they seem ethical monstrosities. but, as the opening words of the paragraph show, luther had another purpose in writing to melanchthon as he did. melanchthon was a public preacher and expounder of the doctrine of evangelical grace. he must not preach that doctrine mincingly, haltingly. is that possible? indeed, it is. just as there are preachers afraid to preach the divine law and to tell men that they are under the curse of god and merit damnation, so there are preachers afraid, actually afraid, to preach the full gospel, without any limiting clauses and provisos. just as there are teachers of christianity who promptly put on the soft pedal when they reach the critical point in their public deliverances where they must reprove sin, and who hate intensive preaching of the ten commandments, so there are evangelical teachers who dole out gospel grace in dribbles and homeopathic doses, as if it were the most virulent poison, of which the sinner must not be given too much. luther tells melanchthon: if you are afraid to draw every stop in the organ when you play the tune of love divine, all love excelling, you had better quit the organ. there are some sinners in this world that will not understand your faint evangelical whispers; they need to have the truth that christ forgives their sins, all their sins,--their worst sins, blown into them with all the trumpets that made the walls of jericho fall. if melanchthon did not require a strong faith in the forgiving grace of god for himself, he needed it as a teacher of that grace to others; he must, therefore, familiarize himself with the immensity and power of that grace. in conclusion, it should be noted that the catholic writers who express their extreme disgust at the immoral principles of luther belong to a church whose theologians have made very questionable distinctions between venial sins and others. papal dispensations and decisions of catholic casuists, especially in the order of the jesuits, have startled the world by their moral perverseness. yea, the very principles of probabilism and mental reservation which the jesuits have espoused are antiethical. in accordance with the principle last named, "when important interests are at stake, a negative or modifying clause may remain unuttered which would completely reverse the statement actually made. this principle justified unlimited lying when one's interest or convenience seemed to require it. where the same word or phrase has more than one sense, it may be employed in an unusual sense with the expectation that it will be understood in the usual. [this is called "amphibology" by them.] such evasions may be used under oath in a civil court. equally destructive of good morals was the teaching of many jesuit casuists that moral obligation may be evaded by directing the intention when committing an immoral act to an end worthy in itself; as in murder, to the vindication of one's honor; in theft, to the supplying of one's needs or those of the poor; in fornication or adultery, to the maintenance of one's health or comfort. nothing did more to bring upon the society the fear and distrust of the nations and of individuals than the justification and recommendation by several of their writers of the assassination of tyrants, the term 'tyrant' being made to include all persons in authority who oppose the work of the papal church or order. the question has been much discussed, jesuits always taking the negative side, whether the jesuits have taught that 'the end justifies the means.' it may not be possible to find this maxim in these precise words in jesuit writings; but that they have always taught that for the 'greater glory of god,' identified by them with the extension of roman catholic (jesuit) influence, the principles of ordinary morality may be set aside, seems certain. the doctrine of philosophical sin, in accordance with which actual attention to the sinfulness of an act when it is being committed is requisite to its sinfulness for the person committing it, was widely advocated by members of the society. the repudiation of some of the most scandalous maxims of jesuit writers by later writers, or the placing of books containing scandalous maxims on the index, does not relieve the society or the roman catholic church from responsibility, as such books must have received authoritative approval before publication, and the censuring of them does not necessarily involve an adverse attitude toward the teaching itself, but way be a more measure of expediency." (a. h. newman, in _new schaff-herzog encycl.,_ , .) . luther, repudiates the ten commandments? in luther's correspondence with weller there occurs a remark to the effect that weller must put the decalog out of his mind. similar statements occur in great number throughout luther's writings. in some of these statements luther speaks in terms of deep scorn and contempt of the law, and considers it the greatest affront that can be offered christians to place them under the law of moses. he declares that moses must be regarded by christians as if he were a heretic, excommunicated by the church, and assigns him to the gallows. some of the strongest invectives of this kind are found in his exposition of the epistle to the galatians. these stern utterances of luther against the law serve the catholics as the basis for their charge that luther is the most destructive spirit that has arisen within the church. he is said to have destroyed the only perfect norm of right and wrong by his violent onslaughts on moses. once the commandments of god are abrogated, the feeling of duty and responsibility, they argue, is plucked from the hearts of men, and license and vice rush in upon the world with the force of a springtide. the reader will remember what has been said in a previous chapter about luther's labors to expound and apply the divine law, also about the intimate and loving relation which he maintained to the ten commandments to the end of his life. luther has spoken of moses as a teacher of true holiness in terms of unbounded admiration and praise. ho declares the writings of moses the principal part of our bible, because all the prophets and apostles have drawn their teaching from moses and have expanded the teaching of moses. christ himself has appealed to moses as an authority in matters of religion. the greatest distinction of moses in luther's view is that he has prophesied concerning christ, and by revealing the people's sin through the teaching of the law has made them see and feel the necessity of a redemption through the mediator. however, also the laws of moses are exceedingly fine, luther thinks. the ten commandments are essentially the natural moral law implanted in the hearts of man. but also his forensic laws, his civil statutes, his ecclesiastical ordinances, his regulations regarding the hygiene, and the public order that must be maintained in a great commonwealth, are wise and salutary. the catholics are forced to admit that alongside of the open contempt which luther occasionally voices for moses and the mosaic righteousness inculcated by the law there runs a cordial esteem of the great prophet. luther regards the law of moses as divine; it is to him just as much the word of god as any other portion of the scriptures. to save their faces in a debate they must concede this point, but they charge luther with being a most disorderly reasoner, driven about in his public utterances by momentary impulses: he will set up a rule to-day which he knocks down to-morrow. he will cite the same principle for or against a matter. he is so erratic that he can be adduced as authority by both sides to a controversy. the catholic may succeed with certain people in getting rid of luther on the claim that his is a confused mind, and that in weighty affairs he adopts the policy of the opportunist. most men will demand a better explanation of the seeming self-contradiction in luther's attitude toward the divine law. there is only one connection in which luther speaks disparagingly of the law, and we shall show that what he says is no real disparagement, but the correct scriptural valuation of the law. luther holds that the ten commandments do not save any person nor contribute the least part to his salvation. they must be entirely left out of account when such questions are to be answered as these: how do i obtain a gracious god? how is my sin to be forgiven? how do i obtain a good conscience? how can i come to i live righteously? how can i hope to die calmly, in the confidence that i am going to heaven? on such occasions luther says: turn your eyes away from moses and his law; he cannot help you; you apply at the wrong office when you come to him for rest for your soul here and hereafter. he gives you no comfort, and he cannot, because it is not his function to do so. it is another's business to do that. him you grossly dishonor and traduce when you refuse to come to him for what he alone can give, and when you go to some one who does not give you what you need, though you pretend that you get it from this other. a proper relation to god is established for us only by jesus christ. he is the exclusive mediator appointed by god for his dealing with man and for man in his dealings with god. there is salvation in none other; nor can our hope of heaven be placed on any other foundation than that which god laid when he appointed christ our redeemer (acts , ; cor. , ). this is bible-doctrine. "the law was given by moses, but grace and truth came by jesus christ," says john (chap. , ). here the two fundamental teachings of the scriptures are strictly set apart the one from the other. they have much in common: they have the same holy author, god; their contents are holy; they serve holy ends. but they are differently related to sinful man: the law tells man what he must do, the gospel, what christ has done for him; the law issues demands, the gospel, gratuitous offers; the law holds out rewards for merits or severe penalties, the gospel, free and unconditioned gifts; the law terrifies, the gospel cheers the sinner; the law turns the sinner against god by proving to him his incapacity to practise it, the gospel draws the sinner to god and makes him a willing servant of god. paul demands of the christian minister that he "rightly divide the word of truth" ( tim. , ). to preach the bible-doctrine of salvation aright and with salutary effect, the law and the gospel must be kept apart as far as east is from the west. the law is truth, but, it is not the truth that saves, because it knows of no grace for the breakers of the law. the gospel teaches holiness and righteousness, however, not such as the sinner achieves by his own effort, but such as has been achieved for the sinner by his substitute, jesus christ. the gospel is not for men who imagine that they can do the commandments of god; jesus christ says: "i came not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance" (matt. , ). on the other hand, the law is not for sinners who know themselves saved. "the law is not made for a righteous man" ( tim. , ). christians employ the law for the regulation of their lives, as a pattern and index of holy works which are pleasing to god and as a deterrent from evil works, but they do not seek their salvation, neither wholly nor in part, in the law, nor do they look to the law for strength to do the will of god. moreover christians, while they are still in the flesh, apply the law to the old adam in themselves; they bruise the flesh with its deceitful lusts with the scourge of moses, and thus they are in a sense under the law, and can never be without the law while they live. but in another sense they are not under the law: all their life is determined by divine grace; their faith, their hope, their charity, is entirely from the gospel, and the new man in them acknowledges no master except jesus christ, who is all in all to them (eph. , ). when luther directed men for their salvation away from the law, he did what christ himself had done when he called to the multitudes: "come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and i will give you rest" (matt. , ). the people to whom these words were addressed had the law of moses and wearied themselves with its fulfilment, such as it was under the direction of teachers and guides who had misinterpreted and were misapplying that law continually. even in that false view of the law which they had been taught, and which did not at all exhaust its meaning, there was no ease of conscience, no assurance of divine favor, no rest for their souls. christ with his gracious summons told them, in effect: you must forget the law and the ordinances of your elders and your miserable works of legal service. you must turn your back upon moses. in me, only in me, is your help. moses himself never conceived his mission to be what the catholics declare it to be by their doctrine of salvation by faith plus works. moses directed his people to the greater prophet who was to come in the future, and told them: "unto him shall ye hearken" (deut. , ). jesus was pointed out to the world as that prophet of whom moses had spoken, when the father at the baptism and the transfiguration of christ repeated from heaven the warning cry of israel's greatest teacher under the old dispensation (matt. , ; , ). but was it necessary, in speaking of the inability of the law to save men, to use such strong and contemptuous terms as luther has used? yes. the catholics do not seen to know in what strong terms the bible has rejected the law as a means of salvation. paul denounces the galatians again and again as "foolish," "bewitched," and bastards of a bondwoman, because they think they will be saved by their works done according to the law (chap. , . ; , ff.). he calls them godless infidels, slaves, silly children still in their nonage, because they imagine that they become acceptable to god by their own righteousness (chap. , ; , ff.). yea, he reprobates their legal service when he says: "as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse" (chap. , ). how contemptuous does it not sound to hear him call the legal ordinances which the galatians were observing "beggarly elements" (chap. , ), and the law a "schoolmaster" (chap. , ), that is, a tutor fit only for little abecedarians who cannot be treated as full-grown persons that are able to make a right use of their privileges as children and heirs of god. why do not the catholics turn up their nose at paul, as they do at luther, when paul calls all his legal righteousness "dung" (phil. , ), or when he speaks slightingly of the observance on which the colossians prided themselves as "rudiments of the world" (col. , )? why does he call the law "the handwriting of ordinances that has been blotted out" (col. , ) but to declare to the colossians that they are to fear the law as little as a debtor fears a canceled note that had been drawn against him? what was it that paul rebuked peter for when he told him that he was building again the things which they both had destroyed (gal. , )? mark you, he says, "destroyed." why, it was this very thing for which luther is faulted by rome, the law as an instrument for obtaining righteousness before god. could a person renounce the law in more determined, one might almost say, ruthless fashion, than by saying: "i am dead to the law, that i might live unto god"? paul is the person who thus speaks of the law (gal. , ). the catholics have again taken hold of the wrong man when they assail luther for repudiating the law of god; they must start higher up; they will find the real culprit whom they are trying to prosecute among the holy apostles. yea, even the apostles will decline the honor of being the original criminals, they will pass the charges preferred against them higher up still; for what contemptuous terms were used by them in speaking of the law were inspired terms which they received from god the holy ghost. that contempt for the law which luther voices under very particular circumstances luther has learned from his bible and under the guidance of the holy ghost. that contempt is a mark of every evangelical preacher to-day. if ministers of the gospel to-day do not denounce the law when falsely applied, they betray a sacred trust and become traitors to christ and the church. for every one who teaches men to seek their salvation in any manner and to any degree in their own works serves not christ, but antichrist. this is such a fearful calamity that no terms should be regarded as too scathing in which to rebuke legalistic tendencies. these tendencies are the bane and blight of christianity; if they are not rooted out, christianity will perish from off the face of the earth. workmongers are missionaries of the father of lies and the murderer from the beginning: so far as in them lies, they slay the souls of men by their false teaching of the law. however, luther reveals another attitude toward the law. at three distinct times in his public career he had to do with people who had assumed a hostile attitude to the law of god. if the contention of luther's catholic critics were true, luther ought to have hailed these occasions with delight and made common cause with the repudiators of the law. while he was at the wartburg, a disturbance broke out at wittenberg. under the leadership of carlstadt, a professor at the university, men broke into the churches and smashed images. church ordinances of age-long standing were to be abrogated, the cloisters were to be thrown open, and a new order of things was to be inaugurated by violence. against the will of the elector of saxony, who had afforded luther an asylum in his castle, luther, at the risk of his life, came out of his seclusion, boldly went to wittenberg, and preached a series of sermons by which he quelled the riotous uprising. even before his return to wittenberg he had published a treatise in which he warned christians to avoid tumult and violent proceedings. the eight sermons which he preached to the excited people of wittenberg are an invaluable evidence that luther meant to proceed in the way of order. the mass and the confessional would have been abolished at that time, had it not been for luther's interference. he made some lifelong enemies by insisting that the reformatory movement must be conservative. he held that before men's consciences had been liberated by the teaching of christ, they were not qualified for exercising true christian liberty, and their violent proceedings were nothing but carnal license. everybody knows how deeply luther himself was interested in the abolition of the idolatrous mass and the spiritual peonage which rome had created for men by means of the confessional. only a person who puts principles above policies could have acted as luther did in those turbulent days. he wanted for his followers, not wanton rebels and frenzied enthusiasts, but men who respect the word of cod, discreet and gentle men whose weapons of warfare were not carnal. a man who is so cautious as not to approve the putting down of acknowledged evils because he is convinced that the attempt is premature and exceeds the limits of propriety, will not lend his hand to abolishing the divine norm of right, the holy commandments of god. the second occasion on which luther in a most impressive manner showed his profound regard for the maintenance of human and divine laws was during the bloody uprising of the peasants. while thoroughly in sympathy with the rebellious peasants in their righteous grievances against their secular and spiritual oppressors, the barons and the bishops, and pleading the peasants' cause in its just demands before their lords, he unflinchingly rebuked their extreme demands and their still extremer actions. if by his preaching of the gospel luther had been the instigator of the peasants' uprising, what a brazen hypocrite he must have been in denouncing acts which he must have acknowledged to be fruits of his teaching! among the noblemen of germany luther counted not a few frank admirers and staunch supporters of his reformatory work. their influence was of the highest value to him in those critical days when his own life was not safe. yet he rebuked the sins of the high and mighty, their avarice and insolence, which had brought on this terrible disturbance. in his writings dealing with this sad conflict luther impresses one like one of the ancient prophets who stand like a rock amid the raging billows of popular passions and with even-handed justice deliver the oracles of god to high and low, calling upon all to bow before the supreme will of the righteous lawgiver. would the great lords of the land have meekly taken luther's rebuke if they had been able to charge luther with being an accessory to the peasants' crimes? the third occasion on which luther's innocence of the charges of romanists that he was an instigator of lawlessness was most effectually vindicated was the antinomian controversy. this episode, more than any other, embittered the life of the aging reformer. the antinomians drew from the evangelical teachings those disastrous consequences which the catholics impute to luther: they claimed that the law is not in any way applicable to christians. they insisted that the ten commandments must not be preached to christians at all. christians, they claimed, determine in the exercise of their sovereign liberty what they may or may not do. being under grace, they are superior to the law and a law unto themselves. at first luther had been inclined to treat this error mildly, because it seemed incredible to him that enlightened children of god could so fatally misread the teaching of god's word. he thought the antinomians were either misunderstood by people who had no conception of the gospel and of evangelical liberty, or they were grossly slandered by persons ill-disposed to them because of their successful preaching of the gospel. when their error had been established beyond a doubt, he did not hesitate a moment to attack it. in sermons and public disputations, before the common people of wittenberg and the learned doctors and the students of the university, he defended the holy law of god as the norm of right conduct and the mirror showing up the sinfulness of man also for christians, and he insisted that those who had fallen into this error must publicly recant. it was due to luther's unrelenting opposition that agricola, one of the leaders of the antinomians and at one time a dear friend of luther, withdrew his false teaching and offered apologies in a published discourse. to his guests luther in those days remarked at the table: "satan, like a furious harlot, rages in the antinomians, as melanchthon writes from frankfort. the devil will do much harm through them and cause infinite and vexatious evils. if they carry their lawless principles into the state as well as the church, the magistrate will say: i am a christian, therefore the law does not pertain to me. even a christian hangman would repudiate the law. if they teach only free grace, infinite license will follow, and all discipline will be at an end." (preserved smith, p. .) luther held that forbidding the preaching of the law meant to prohibit preaching god's truth ( , ), and to abrogate the law he regarded as tantamount to abrogating the gospel ( , ). far from repudiating the ten commandments, then, luther, by insisting on a distinction between law and gospel, and assigning to each a separate sphere of operation in the lives of christians, has done more than any other teacher in the church since the days of paul to impress men with a sincere respect of the law, and to honor it by obedience to its precepts. . luther's invisible church. in his theses against the sale of indulgences, especially in the first two, luther had uttered a thought which led to a new conception of the church. he had declared that christian life does not consist in the performance of certain works of piety, such as going to confession, performing the penances imposed by priests, hearing mass, etc.,--all of which are external, visible acts,--but in a continuous penitential relation of the heart to god. the christian, conscious of his innate corruption and his daily sinning, faces god at all times in the attitude of a humble suitor for mercy. the posture of the publican is the typical attitude of the christian. he recognizes no merit in himself, he pleads no worthiness which would give him a just claim upon god's favor. his single hope and sole reliance is in the merit and atoning work of his savior jesus christ. the christian's penitence embraces as a constituent element faith in the forgiveness of sin for christ's sake. in the strength of his faith the christian begins to wrestle with the sin which is still indwelling in him and which besets him from without. the agony of the redeemer which he places before his eyes at all times proves a deterrent from sin, and the holy example of jesus, who ran with rejoicing the way of the commandments of god, becomes an inspiring example to him: actuated by gratitude for the love of the son of god who gave himself for him and reclaimed him from certain perdition, he begins to reproduce the life of jesus in his own conversation. his whole life is determined by his relation to jesus: his thoughts, affections, words, and deeds are a reflex of the life of his lord. for him to live is christ (phil. , ). all his acts become expressions of his faith. he says with paul: "i live; yet not i, but christ liveth in me: and the life which i now live in the flesh i live by the faith of the son of god, who loved me, and gave himself for me" (gal. , ). during the discussions which followed the publication of the theses, especially during the leipzig debate with eck in , this thought of luther was expanded, and applied to the idea of the church. christianity, in luther's teaching, came to be set forth as something vastly different from the external and mechanical religiousness which had been accepted as christianity by rome. christianity meant a new life, swayed by new motives, governed by new principles. it was seen to be entirely inward, an affair of the heart and soul and mind, and, ulteriorly, an affair of the body and the natural life. the religion of rome, with its constant emphasis on works of men's piety and the merit resulting therefrom, had become thoroughgoing externalism. so many prayers recited, so many altars visited, so many offerings made, meant so many merits achieved. the scheme worked out with mathematical precision. devout catholics might well keep a ledger of their devotional acts, as gustav freitag in his _ancestors_ represents marcus koenig as having done. in the catholic view the church is a visible society, an ecclesiastical organization with a supreme officer at the head, and a host of subordinate officers who receive their orders from him, and lastly, a lay membership that acknowledges the rule of this organization. the church in this view is a religious commonwealth, only in form and operation differing from secular commonwealths. cardinal gibbons calls it "the christian republic." in luther's view the church is, first of all, an invisible society, known to god, the searcher of hearts, alone. the church of christ is the sum-total of believers scattered through the whole world and existing in all ages. to this church we refer when we profess in the apostles' creed: "i believe one holy, christian church, the communion of saints." this is the church, the real church, the church which god acknowledges as the spiritual body of christ, who is the head of the church, and with which he maintains the most intimate and tender relations. this invisible church exists within the visible societies of organized christianity, in the local christian congregations. christian faith is never independent of the means which god has appointed for producing faith, the gospel and the sacraments. "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of god" (rom. , ). this faith-creating word of evangelical grace is an audible and visible matter. its presence in any locality is cognizable by the senses. it becomes attached, moreover, by christ's ordaining, to certain visible elements, as the water in baptism and the bread and wine in the lord's supper. hence these two christian ordinances--the only two for which a divine word of command and promise, hence, a divine institution can be shown--also become related to faith, to its origin and preservation. for of baptism our lord says: "except a man be born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of god" (john , ). to be "born again," or to become a child of god, according to john , , is the same as "to believe." accordingly, paul says: "ye are all the children of god by faith in christ jesus. for as many of you as have been baptized into christ have put on christ" (gal. , . ). of the sacrament our lord says: "this is the blood of the covenant which is shed for many for the remission of sins" (matt. , ); and his apostle declares that communicants, "as often as they eat of this bread and drink of this cup, do show the lord's death till he come" ( cor. , ). the gospel and the sacraments, now, become the marks of the church, the unfailing criteria of its existence in any place. for, according to the declaration of god, they are never entirely without result, though many to whom they are brought resist the gracious operation of the spirit through these means. by isaiah god has said: "as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater: so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which i please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto i sent it" (is. , . ). among the people who in a given locality rally around the word and the sacraments and profess allegiance to them, there is the church, because there is the power of god unto salvation, the faith-producing and faith-sustaining gospel of jesus christ. those who embrace what the gospel offers with a lively faith, and in the power of their faith proceed to lead holy lives in accordance with the teaching of god's word, are the members of the true church of god, the kingdom of christ. those who adhere only externally to these institutions are merely nominal members. they may at heart be hypocrites and secret blasphemers. catholic writers charge luther with having set up this teaching, partly to spite the pope whom he hated, partly to gratify his vainglorious aspirations to become famous. he had at one time held the catholic dogma that the church is the visible society of men who profess allegiance to the bishop of rome and accept his overlordship in matters of their religion. but through neglect of his religious duties and the failure to bridle his imperious temper he had by degrees begun to revolt from the teaching of the catholic church, until he publicly renounced the church that had existed in all the ages before him, and set up his own church. by forsaking the communion of the roman church organization he severed his soul from christ and became an apostate. for, according to catholic belief, christ founded the church to be a visible organization with a visible head, the pope, and plainly and palpably "governing" men. everybody who has read the records of luther's work knows that no thought was more foreign to his mind than that of founding a new church. he believed himself in hearty accord with the catholic church and the pope when he published his theses. he did not wantonly leave the church, but was driven from it by most ruthless measures. it was while he was defending the principles which he had first uttered against tetzel that his eyes were opened to the appalling defection which had occurred in the catholic church from every true conception of what the church really is. his appeals to the word of god were answered by appeals to the church, the councils of the church, the pope. in his unsophisticated mind luther held that church, councils, and pope are all subject to christ, the head of the church. they cannot teach and decree anything but what christ has taught and ordained. it is only by abiding in the words of christ that men become and remain the true disciples of christ, hence, his church (john , ). now, he was told that christ had erected the visible organization of the catholic church with the pope at its head into the church, and had handed over all authority to this society, with the understanding that there can be no appeal from this body to christ himself. salvation is only by submitting to the rule of this society, adopting its ways, following its precepts. from this teaching luther recoiled with horror, and rightly so. at one time god had erected a theocracy on earth, a church which was a visible society, and for which he had made special laws and ordinances. the church of the old covenant is the only visible church which god created. but even in this church he declared that external compliance with its ways did not constitute any one a true member of his church. he told the jews by isaiah: "to this man will i look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. he that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation as if he offered swine's blood; he that burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol" (chap. , . ). here god abominates the mere external performance of acts of worship as an outrage and a crime that is perpetrated against his holy name. repeating a saying of this same prophet, our lord said to the members of the jewish church in his day: "ye hypocrites, well did isaiah prophesy of you, saying, this people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. but in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" (matt. , - ). the pharisees in the days of christ are the true ancestors of catholics in their belief that the church is a great, powerful, visible organization in this world, subject to the supreme will of a visible ruler, and capable of being employed in great worldly enterprises like a political machine. the pharisees were always looking for the establishment of a mighty church organization which would dominate the world. they expected the messiah to inaugurate a church of this kind. with this ambitious thought in their heart they approached christ on a certain occasion and asked him "when the kingdom of god should come. he answered them and said, the kingdom of god cometh not with observation; neither shall they say, lo, here! or, lo, there! for, behold, the kingdom of god is within you" (luke , . ). to the same effect paul declares "he is not a jew which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a jew which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter" (rom. , . ). and to a young pastor whom he had trained for work in the church, he describes the church as follows: "the foundation of god standeth sure, having this seal, the lord knoweth them that are his. and, let every one that nameth the name of christ depart from iniquity" ( tim. , ). by making the gospel the mark of the church and faith the gospel the badge of membership in the church luther has rendered an incalculable service to christianity. this view of the church shows the immense importance of a live, intelligent, and active personal faith. it puts a ban on religious indifference and mechanical worship. it destroys formalism, ceremonialism, pharisaism in the affairs of religion. justly luther has ridiculed the implicit, or blind, faith of catholics, when he writes: "the papists say that they believe what the church believes, just as it is being related of the poles that they say: i believe what my king believes. indeed! could there be a better faith than this, a faith less free from worry and anxiety? they tell a story about a doctor meeting a collier on a bridge in prague and condescendingly asking the poor layman, 'my dear man, what do you believe?' the collier replied, 'whatever the church believes.' the doctor: 'well, what does the church believe?' the collier: 'what i believe.' some time later the doctor was about to die. in his last moments he was so fiercely assailed by the devil that he could not maintain his ground nor find rest until he said, 'i believe what the collier believes.' a similar story is being told of the great [catholic theologian] thomas aquinas, viz., that in his last moments he was driven into a corner by the devil, and finally declared, 'i believe what is written in this book.' he had the bible in his arms while he spoke these words. god grant that not much of such faith be found among us! for if these people did not believe in a different manner, both the doctor and the collier have been landed in the abyss of hell by their faith." ( , .) luther's teaching regarding the church leads to a proper valuation of the means of grace. only through the evangelical word and the evangelical ordinances is the church planted, watered, and sustained. it is, therefore, necessary that the world be supplied in abundance with the word through the missionary operations of christians, and that the christians themselves have the word dwell among them richly (col. , ). "he that abideth in me, and i in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without me ye can do nothing," says the head of the church to his disciples (john , ); and in his last prayer he pleads with the father in their behalf: "sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth" (john , ). for the same reason it is necessary that the word and sacraments be preserved in their scriptural purity, that any deviation from the clear teaching of the bible be resisted, and orthodoxy be maintained. errors in doctrine are like tares in a wheat-field: they are useless in themselves, and they hinder the growth of good plants. error saves no one, but some are still saved in spite of error by clinging to the truth which is offered them along with the error. luther believed that this happened even in the error-ridden catholic church. luther's teaching regarding the church enables us, furthermore, to form a right estimate of the ministry in the church. christ wants all believers to be proclaimers of his truth and grace. the apostle whom catholics regard as the first pope says to all christians: "ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light" ( pet. , ). to the local congregation of believers, which is to deal with an offending brother, even to the extent of putting him out of the church, christ says: "if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. verily, i say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." there is nothing that god denies even to the smallest company of believers while they are engaged in the discharge of their rights and duties as members of the church; for christ adds: "again i say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my father which is in heaven. for where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am i in the midst of them" (matt. , - ). all rights and duties of the church are common to all members. all have the right to preach, to administer the sacraments, etc. over and above this, however, christ has instituted also a personal ministry, men who can be "sent" even as he was sent by the father (john , ; comp. rom. , : "how shall they preach, except they be sent?"); men who are to devote themselves exclusively to the reading of the word ( tim. , ), to teaching and guiding their fellow-believers in the way of divine truth (see the epistles to timothy and titus). but the ministry in the church does not represent a higher grade of christianity,--the laymen representing the lower,--but the ministry is a service ordained for the "perfecting of the saints and the edifying of the body of christ," viz., his church (eph. , . ; , ). _minister_ is derived from _minus,_ "less," not from _magis_--from which we have _magister_--meaning "more." the ministry of the church of the new testament is not a hierarchy, endowed with special privileges and powers by the lord, but a body of humble workmen who serve their fellow-men and fellow-christians in the spirit of christ, who said: "the son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many" (matt. , ). ministers merely exercise in public the common rights of all believers and are the believers' representatives in all their official acts. so paul viewed the absolution which he pronounced upon the penitent member of the corinthian congregation ( cor. , ). when the corinthians had begun to exalt their preachers unduly, he told them that they were "carnal." "who is paul," he exclaims, "and who is apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed? . . . let no man glory in men. for all things are yours; whether paul, or apollos, or cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours" ( cor. , . . . ). and peter, the original pope in the catholics' belief, says: "the elders which are among you i exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: feed the flock of god which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over god's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock" ( pet. , - ). lastly, luther's teaching regarding the church affords a wealth of comfort and sound direction in view of the divided condition of the visible church. through the ignorance and malice of men and through the wily activity of satan, who creates divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine of christ, and is busy sowing tares among the wheat, there have arisen many church organizations, known by party names, differing from one another in their creedal statements, and warring upon each other. this is a sad spectacle to contemplate, and grieves christian hearts sorely. but these divisions in the external and visible organizations do not touch the body of christ, the communion of saints, the one holy christian church. in all ages and places the true believers in christ are a unit. among those who by faith have "put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him, there is neither greek nor jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, scythian, bond, nor free; but christ is all, and in all" (col. , . ). this is the true catholic, that is, universal, church. the visible society which has usurped this name never was, nor is to-day, the universal church. before protestantism arose, there was the eastern church, which has maintained a separate organization. this holy christian church is indestructible, because the word of christ, which is its bond, shall never pass away, and christ rules even in the midst of his enemies. visible church organizations are valuable only in as far as they shelter, and are nurseries of, the invisible church. luther never conceived the idea of founding a visible organization more powerful than the catholic; he did not mean to pit one ecclesiastical body of men against another. his single aim was to restore the purity of teaching and the right administration of the sacraments in accordance with the scriptures. that his followers were named after him, we have shown not to be luther's fault: luther did not form a church, but reformed the church; he did not establish a new creed, but reestablished the old. the visible society of lutherans to-day does not regard itself as the alone-saving church, or as immune from error, or as infallible, but it does claim to be the church of the pure word and sacraments. it knows that it is one in faith with all the children of god throughout the world and in all ages. . luther on the god-given supremacy of the pope. in the opinion of catholics luther's greatest offense is what he has done to their pope. this is luther's unpardonable sin. luther has done two things to the pope: he has denied that the pope exists by divine right, and he has in the most scurrilous manner spoken and written about the pope and made his vaunted dignity the butt of universal ridicule. the indictment is true, but when the facts are stated, it will be seen to recoil on the heads of those who have drawn it. luther denies that matt. , . establishes the papacy in the church of christ. he denies that this text creates a one-man power in the church, that it vests one individual with a sovereign jurisdiction over the spiritual affairs of all other men, making him the sole arbiter of their faith and the exclusive dispenser of divine grace, and, last, not least, that it says one word about the pope. luther makes, indeed, a clean and sweeping denial of every claim which catholics advance for the god-given supremacy of their popes. inasmuch as the papacy stands or falls with matt. , . , he has put the catholics in the worst predicament imaginable. catholics believe that peter was singled out for particular honors in the church by being declared the rock on which christ builds his church, and by being given the keys of the kingdom of heaven. peter's supremacy as primate of the world, they hold, passed over to peter's successor and is perpetuated in an unbroken line of succession in the roman popes. three questions, then, confronted luther in the study of this text in matthew. first, does the "rock" in matt. , signify peter? the lord had addressed to all his disciples the question, "whom say ye that i am?" instead of all of them answering and creating a confusion, peter, the most impulsive of the apostles, speaks up and says, "thou art the christ, the son of the living god." with these words peter expressed the common faith of all the disciples. not one of them dissented from his statement; he had voiced the joint conviction of them all. peter was the spokesman, but the confession was that of the apostles. any other apostle might have spoken first and said the same, had he been quicker than peter. if there is any merit in peter's confession of christ, all other disciples, yea, all who confess christ as peter did, share that merit. in replying to peter the lord takes all merit away from peter by saying to him: "blessed art thou, simon barjona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my father which is in heaven." he addresses peter by the name he had borne before he became an apostle: simon, son of jonas, and tells him that if he were still what he used to be before he came to christ, he could not have made the confession which he had just uttered. in his old unconverted state he would not have formed any higher opinion concerning christ than the people throughout the country, some of whom thought that christ was john the baptist risen from the dead; others, that he was jeremias; still others, that he was one of the ancient prophets come back to life. the deity of jesus and his mission as christ, that is, as the messiah, our lord says, are grasped by men only when the father reveals these truths to them. a spiritual nature, a new mind such as the spirit gives in regeneration, is required for such a confession. the glory of peter's confession, therefore, is the glory of every believer. to every sunday-school child which recites luther's explanation of the second article: "i believe that jesus christ, true god, begotten of the father from eternity, and also true man, born of the virgin mary, is my lord, who has redeemed me," the lord would say the same thing as he did to peter: my child, yours is an excellent confession; there is nothing fickle or undecided in it like in the vague and changing opinions which worldly men form about me. thank god that he has given you the grace to know me as i ought to be known. but did not the lord proceed to declare peter the rock on which he would build his church? that is what catholics believe, in spite of the fact that this would be the only place in the whole bible where a human being would be represented as the foundation of the church, while there are scores of passages which name quite another person as the rock that supports the church. catholics read this text thus: "thou art peter, and _on thee_ will i build my church." that is precisely what christ did not say, and what he was most careful not to express. the words "peter" and "rock" are plainly two different terms and denote two different objects. that is the most natural view to take of the matter. in the original greek we find two words similar in sound, but distinct in meaning for the two objects to which christ refers: peter's name is _petros,_ which is a personal noun; the word for "rock" is _petra,_ which is a common noun. in the greek, then, christ's answer reads thus: "thou art _petros,_ and on this _petra_ will i build my church." catholics claim that christ, in answering peter, introduced a play upon words, such as a witty person will indulge in: _petros,_ the apostle's name, signifies a rock-man, a firm person, and from this meaning it is an easy step to _petra,_ which is plain rock or stone. if this interpretation is admitted, the expression "upon thee" may be substituted for the expression "on this rock." yet not altogether. by adopting the peculiar phraseology "upon this rock" in the place of "upon thee," christ avoids referring to the individual peter, to the person known as peter, and refers rather to a characteristic in him, namely, his firmness and boldness in confessing christ. this every careful interpreter of this text will admit. christ could easily have said: upon thee will i build my church, if it had been his intention to say just that. and we imagine on such a momentous occasion christ would have used the plainest terms, containing no figure of speech, no ambiguities whatever; for was he not now introducing to the church the distinguished person who was to preside over its affairs? catholics claim that when christ spoke these words, "upon this rock," he had extended his hand and was pointing to peter. that would help us considerably in the interpretation of the text. the trouble is only that we are not told anything about such a gesture of christ, and if a gesture must be invented, it is possible to invent an altogether different one, as we shall see. but if christ, by saying, "upon this rock," instead of saying, "upon thee," referred not to peter as a person, but to a quality in peter, namely, to his firm faith, then it follows that the church is not built on the person of peter, but on a quality of peter. this is the best that catholics can obtain from the interpretation which they have attempted. but if the church is built on firm faith, there is no reason why that faith should be just peter's. would not every firm believer in the deity and redeemership of christ become the rock on which the church is built just as much as peter? luther declared quite correctly: "we are all peters if we believe like peter." really, the catholics ought to be willing to help strengthen the foundation of the church by admitting that the rock would become a stouter support if, instead of the firm faith of one man, the equally firm faith of hundreds, thousands, and millions of other men were added to prop up the church. in all seriousness, it will be absolutely necessary to give peter some assistants; for we know that the job of holding up the church was too big for him on at least two occasions. what became of the church in the night when peter denied the lord? in that night, the catholics would have to believe, the church was built on a liar and blasphemer. what became of the church in the days when peter came to antioch and paul withstood him to the face because he was dissembling his christian convictions not to offend a judaizing party in the church? (gal. .) was the church in those days built on a canting hypocrite? but the greatest difficulty in admitting the catholic interpretation is met when one remembers those bible-texts which name an altogether different rock as the foundation and corner-stone of the church. paul says that in their desert wanderings the israelites were accompanied by christ. he was their unseen guide and benefactor. he supported their faith. "they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them; and that rock was christ" ( cor. , ). at the conclusion of the sermon on the mount the lord relates a parable about a wise and a foolish builder. the foolish builder set up his house on sand; the wise builder built on rock. by the rock, however, the lord would have us understand "these sayings of mine" (matt. , ). paul speaks of the church to the ephesians thus: "ye are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, jesus christ himself being the chief corner-stone" (chap. , ). most fatal, however, to the catholic interpretation is the testimony of peter. exhorting the christians to eager study of the word of the lord, he goes on to say: "to whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of god, and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to god by jesus christ. wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, behold, i lay in sion a chief corner-stone, elect, precious; and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. unto you therefore which believe he is precious, but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient" ( pet. , - ). here peter in the plainest and strongest terms declares christ to be the rock on which the church is built. the scribes and pharisees rejected him, as had been foretold, but the common people who heard him gladly embraced his message of salvation, and rested their faith on what he had taught them and done for them. peter evidently did not understand the text in matthew as the catholics understand it. peter in his epistle is really a heretic in what he says about the rock, and if the catholics could spare him from under the church, they ought to burn him. instead of connecting the two parts of the statement: "thou art peter," and, "upon this rock i will build my church," as closely as catholics do, the two parts ought to be kept separate. what the lord says to peter may be paraphrased thus: peter, there was a time when you were merely simon, jonas's son. at that time you had thoughts and formed opinions about holy matters such as your flesh and blood, your natural reason, suggested to you. all that is changed now that you are a peter, a firm believer in the revelation which the father makes to men about me. what you have confessed is the exact truth; cling to that against all odds; for upon this person whom you have confessed, as upon a rock, i will build my church.--and now we may imagine that the lord, while uttering the words, "upon this rock," pointed to himself. the text does not say that the lord made such a gesture; we simply imagine this, but our imagination is not only just as good as that of the catholics, but better, for the gesture which we assume agrees with the teachings of all the scriptures that speak of christ's person and work. however, the catholics remind us that christ gave to peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven and made him the doorkeeper of paradise. yes, so the text reads, and with luther we should now inquire: was it a brass, or silver, or golden, or wooden key? is the lock on the gate of heaven a common padlock, or like the cunning contrivances which are nowadays employed in safety vaults? catholics are very much offended when one speaks thus of the keys of peter. they say sarcasm is out of place in such holy matters. that is quite true; but, again with luther, we would urge that the keys of which we are speaking sarcastically are not the keys in matt. , , but the keys in the catholic imagination. and these latter one can hardly treat with reverence. the catholics must admit that no real key, or anything resembling a key, was given to peter by christ. the language in this text is figurative: the words which follow state the lord's meaning in plain terms. the power of the keys is the preaching of the forgiveness of sins to penitent sinners, and the withholding of grace from those who do not repent. if that is admitted to be the meaning, we need turn only one leaf in our bible, and read what is stated in matt. , . there the lord confers the same authority on all the disciples which he is said in matt. , to have conferred on peter exclusively. on this latter occasion peter, if the catholics have the right view of the keys, ought to have interposed an objection and said to the lord, what you give to the others is my property. evidently peter did not connect the same meaning with the words of christ about the keys as the catholics. christ spoke of this matter once more, and in terms still plainer, at the meeting on easter eve, and again addressed all the disciples. again peter made no complaint. (john .) it should be noted , moreover, that in this entire text in matthew the lord speaks in the future tense: "i will build," "i will give." the words do not really confer a grant, but are at best a promise. it is necessary now that the catholics find a complement to this text in matthew, a text which relates that christ actually carried out later what he promised to peter in matt. , . . the lord seems to have forgotten the fulfilment of his promise, and the matter seems to have slipped peter's mind, too; for we are not told that he reminded the lord of his promise, though he asked him on another occasion what would be the reward of his discipleship. (matt. , ff.) luther has, furthermore, appealed to the catholics to prove from the scriptures that peter ever exercised such an authority as they claim for him. if peter had been created the prince of the apostles or the visible head of the church, we should expect to find evidence in our bible that peter acted as a privileged person and was so regarded by the other apostles. but we may read through the entire book of acts and all the apostolic epistles: they tell us very minutely how the church was planted in many lands, how it grew and spread, but there is not even a faint hint that peter was regarded as the primate, or pope, in his day. when a certain question of doctrine was to be decided in which the congregations of paul were interested, paul did not lay the matter before peter to obtain his judgment on it, but referred it to a council of the church. at this council many spoke, and it was not peter's, but james's speech which finally decided the matter. (acts .) when philip had organized congregations in samaria, the church at jerusalem sent peter and john to visit them. peter did not assume control of these churches by his own right, nor had philip in the first place directed the samaritans to peter as their head. (acts , ff.) we have thirteen letters of paul, three of john, besides the revelation, one of james, and one of jude. the state of the church, its affairs and development, are the subject-matter of all these writings, but not one of them reveals the popedom of peter. yea, peter himself has written two epistles and appears utterly ignorant of the fact that the lord had created him his vicegerent and the visible head of the church. the catholic argument for the god-given supremacy of their pope, however, becomes perfectly reckless when we bear in mind that their banner text speaks only of peter, but says nothing at all about peter's successors. if peter possessed the supremacy that catholics claim for him, how and by what right did he dispose of it at his death? how did this power become attached to rome? on all these questions the bible is silent. catholics construct a skilful argument from fragmentary and doubtful historical records, which are not god's word, to show that peter chore rome as his episcopal see, and therewith transferred his primacy for all time to this place. to fabricate a dogma that is to be binding on the consciences of all christians in such a way is daring impudence. the devout catholic must close his eyes to all history if he is to believe that christ really appointed a pope. when he reads the history of the popes, and comes to the period of the papal schism, when the church had not only one, but two visible heads, one residing at rome, the other at avignon, yea, when he reads of three contestants for papal honors, and beholds the church as a tricephalous monster, he must stop thinking. luther regarded the papacy as the most monstrous fraud that has been practised on christianity. in its gradual and persistent development and the success with which it has maintained itself through all reverses, it impresses one as something uncanny. it requires more than human wiliness to originate, foster, perfect, and support such a thoroughly unbiblical and antichristian institution. luther spoke of the papal deception as one of the signs foreboding the end of the world. he has not spoken in delicate terms of the popes. his most virulent utterances are directed against the "vicar of christ" at rome. he traces the papacy to diabolical origin. when he lays bare the shocking perversions of revealed truths of which rome has been guilty, and talks about the foul practises of the popes and their courtesans, luther's language becomes appalling. in a series of twenty-six cartoons luther's friend cranach depicted the rule of christ and antichrist. the series was published under the title "passional christi und antichristi." ( , ff.) by placing alongside of one another scenes from the life of the lord and scenes from the lives of the popes, the artist displayed very effectually the contrast between the true religion which the redeemer had taught men by his word and example, and the false religiousness which was represented by the papacy. on the one side was humility, on the other, pride; poverty was shown in contrast with wealth; meekness was placed over and against arrogance, etc. at a glance the people saw the chasm that yawned between the preaching and practise of jesus and that of his pretended representative and vicar, and they verified the pictures showing the pope in various attitudes from their own experience. these cartoons became very popular, and have maintained their popularity till the most recent times. during the "kulturkampf" which the german government under bismarck waged against the aggressive policy of the vatican, the german painter hofmann issued a new edition of the "passionale," and emperor william i sent a copy to the pope with a warning letter. catholics complain about the rudeness and nastiness of these cartoons and others that followed. luther is supposed to have furnished the rhymes and descriptive matter which accompanied them. lather is also cited as uttering most repulsive and scurrilous sentiments about the pope. what are we to say about this antipapal violence of luther? certainly, it is not a pleasant subject. we are in this instance facing essentially the same situation as that which confronted us when we studied luther's "coarseness" (chap. ), and all that was said in that connection applies with equal force to the subject now before us. one may deplore the necessity of these passionate outbursts ever so much, but when all the evidence in the case has been gathered and the jury begins to sift the evidence and weigh the arguments on either side, there is at the worst a drawn jury. all who have truly sounded "the mystery of iniquity" which has been set up in the church by the papacy will affirm luther's sentiments about the pope as true. it is necessary, however, to point out certain facts that may be regarded as additional argument to what was said in chap. . in the first place, the cartoon is a recognized weapon in polemics. the struggle of the protestants against the pope was not altogether a religious and spiritual one; political matters were discussed together with affairs of religion at every german diet in those days. the age was rude and largely illiterate. many who could never have made any sense out of a page of printed matter, very easily understood a picture. it conveyed truthful information, though in a form that hurt, as cartoons usually do, and it roused a healthy sentiment against a very malignant evil in the church and in the body politic. if the popes would keep out of politics, they and their followers would enjoy more quiet nerves. in the second place, it should be borne in mind that the claim of papal supremacy is no small and innocent matter. the popes wrested to themselves the supreme spiritual and temporal power in the world. they pretended to be the custodians of heaven, the directors of purgatory, and the lords of the earth. across the history of the world in the era of luther is written in all directions the one word rome. it is rome at the altar swinging the censer, rome in the panoply of battle storming trenches and steeping her hands in gore, rome in the councils of kings, rome in the halls of guilds, rome in the booth of the trader at a town-fair, rome in the judge's seat, rome in the professor's chair, rome receiving ambassadors from, and dispatching nuncios to, foreign courts, rome dictating treaties to nations and arranging the cook's _menu,_ rome labeling the huckster's cart and the vintner's crop, rome levying a tax upon the nuptial bed, rome exacting toll at the gate of heaven. out of the wreck of the imperial rome of the caesars has risen papal rome. once more, though through different agents, the city of the seven hills is ruling an _orbis terrarum romanus,_ a roman world-empire. the rule extends through nearly a thousand years. how deftly do cunning priests manipulate every means at their command to increase their power! learning, wealth, beauty, art, piety,--everything is used as an asset in the ambitious game for absolute supremacy which the mitered vicegerent of christ is playing against the world. rome's ancient pontifex maximus --the pagan high priest of the rome before christ--had been a tool of the consuls and the caesars; the new pontiff makes the caesars his tools. princes kiss his feet and hold the stirrup for him as he mounts his bedizened palfrey. an emperor stands barefoot in the snow of the pope's courtyard suing pardon for having dared to govern without the pope's sanction.--the forests of germany are reverberating with the blows of axes which rome's missionaries wield against donar's oaks. the sanctuaries of pagan germany are razed. out of the wood of idols crucifixes are erected along the highways. chapels and abbeys and cathedrals rise where the aurochs was hunted. sturdy barbarians bend the knee at the shrines of saints. hosts set out to see the land where the lord had walked and suffered, and brave all dangers and hardships to wrest its possession from infidel hands. but at the place where all these activities center, and whence they are being fed, a shocking abomination is seen: venus is worshiped, and bacchus, and mercurius, and mars, while white-robed choirs chant praises to the mother of god, and clouds of incense are wafted skyward. here is a mystery--a mystery of iniquity: the son of perdition in the temple of god! proud, haughty rome, wealthy, wicked and wanton, is filling up her measure of wrath against the day of retribution.--we are now so far removed from these scenes that they seem unreal; in luther's days they were decidedly real. rome's aggressiveness has been perceptibly checked during the last four centuries; in luther's days papal pretensions were a more formidable proposition. human arrogance may be said to have reached its limit in the papacy. the pope is practically a god on earth. "sitting in the temple of god as god, he is showing himself that he is god" ( thess. , ). he has been addressed by his followers in terms of the deity. "when the pope thinks, it is god thinking," wrote the papal organ of rome, the _civilta cattolica,_ in . he has asserted the right to make laws for christians, and to dispense with the laws of the almighty. although this seemed a superfluous proceeding, he declared himself infallible on july , . under a glowering sky, as if heaven frowned angrily at the pope's attempt, plus ix had entered st. peter's. as a "second moses" he mounted the papal throne to read the constitution "aeternus pater," the document in which he made the following claims: canon iii: "if any one says that the roman pontiff has only authority to inspect and direct, but not plenary and supreme authority of jurisdiction over the entire church, not only in matters which relate to faith and morals, but also in matters that belong to the discipline and government of the church scattered through the whole earth; or that he has only the more eminent part of such authority, but not the full plenitude of this supreme authority; or that this authority of his is not his ordinary authority which he holds from no intermediary, and that it does not extend over all churches and every single one of them, over all pastors and every single one of them, over all the faithful and every single one of them, --let him be accursed!" canon iv: "with the approval of the sacred council we teach and declare it to be a dogma revealed from heaven that the roman pontiff, when he speaks _ex cathedra,_ that is, when, in accordance with his supreme apostolic authority, be discharges his office as pastor and teacher of all christians, and defines a doctrine relating to the faith or morals which is to be embraced by the entire church, he is, by divine assistance promised to him in the blessed peter, vested with that infallibility with which the divine redeemer desired his church to be endowed in defining the doctrine of faith and morals; and that for this reason such definitions of the roman pontiff are in their very nature, not, however, by reason of the consent of the church, unchangeable. if--which god may avert!--any one should presume to contradict this definition of ours,--let him be accursed!" amid flashes of lightning and peals of thunder this document was read to a council whose membership had shrunk during seven months of deliberation from to attendants,-- qualified members had never put in an appearance,--and of these all but two had been cowed into abject submission. when one recalls scenes like these, and remembers that catholic teaching on justification attacks the very heart of christianity, anything that luther has said about the popes appears mild. such heaven-storming and god-defying arrogance deserves to be dragged through the mire--with apologies to the mire. . luther the translator of the bible. a violent attack upon luther by catholic writers is caused by the admiration which protestants manifest for luther because he translated the bible into german. catholics, of course, cannot deny that luther did translate the bible, and that his translation is still a cherished treasure of protestants; but in order to belittle this achievement of luther, which inflicted incalculable damage on rome, they talk about luther's unfitness for the work of bible-translation and about the unwarranted liberties luther took with the bible. these writers claim that luther was, in the first place, morally unfit to undertake the translation of the bible. to show to what desperate means luther's catholic critics will resort in order to make out a case against him, we note that one of the most recent disparagers of luther informs the public that luther's original name had been luder. this name conveys the idea of "carrion," "beast," "low scoundrel." when luther began to translate the bible, we are told, he changed his name into "squire george." once before this, at the time of his entering the university, catholics note that he changed his name from luder to lueder. but these changes of his name, they say, did not improve his character. we are told that, while luther was engaged upon the work of rendering the bible into german, he was consumed with fleshly lust and given to laziness. luther's own statements in letters to friends are cited to corroborate this assertion. the conclusion which we are to draw from these "facts" is this: such a corrupt person could not possibly be a proper instrument for the holy spirit to employ in so pious an undertaking as the translation of the word of god. catholics should be reminded that they misquote the book of matriculation in which the students at erfurt signed their names on entering the university. luther's signature is not "lueder" but "ludher." other forms of the name "luder" and "lueder" occur elsewhere. but in any form the name has a more honorable derivation and meaning than catholic writers are inclined to give it. it is derived from "luither," which means as much as "people's man," (= der leute herr). another well-known form of the same name is lothar, which some, tracing the derivation still further, derive from the old german chlotachar, which means as much as "loudly hailed among the army" (= _hluit,_ loud, and _chari,_ army). respectable scholars to-day so explain the name luther. at the wartburg, where luther was an exile for ten months, his name was changed by the warden of the castle, count von berlepsch. this was done the better to conceal his identity from the henchmen of rome, who by the imperial edict of outlawry had been given liberty to hunt luther and slay him where they found him. the sexual condition of luther during the years before his marriage was the normal condition of any healthy young man at his age. luther speaks of this matter as a person nowadays would speak about it to his physician or to a close friend. the matter to which he refers is in itself perfectly pure: it is an appeal of nature. do luther's catholic critics mean to infer that luther was the only monk, then or now, that felt this call which human nature issues by the ordination of the creator? rome can inflict celibacy even on priests that look like stall-fed oxen, but she cannot unsex men. mohammedans are less inhuman to their eunuchs. moreover, it must be borne in mind that luther complains of this matter as something that disturbs him. it vexed his pure mind, and he fought against it as not many monks of his day have done, by fasting, prayer, and hard work. yes, hard work! the remarks of luther about his physical condition are simply twisted from their true import when luther is represented as a victim of fleshly lust and a habitual debauchee. luther's catholic critics fail to mention that during his brief stay at the wartburg luther not only translated the greater part of the new testament, but also wrote about a dozen treatises, some of them of considerable size, and that of his correspondence during this period about fifty letters are still preserved. surely, a fairly respectable record for a lazy man! catholic writers also declare luther spiritually unfit for translating the bible. they say that all the time that luther spent at the wartburg he was haunted by the devil. he would hear strange noises and see weird shadows flit before him. he felt that he had come under the sway of the powers of darkness. this, we are assured, was because he had risen in rebellion against the divine power of the papacy. the holy father whom he had attacked was being avenged upon luther by an accusing conscience. luther was given a foretaste of the terrors that await the reprobate. he had become an incipient demoniac. the inference which we are to draw from this delightful description is this: could such an abandoned wretch as luther was during the exile at the wartburg be favored with the holy calm and composure and the heavenly light which any person must possess who sets out upon the arduous task of telling men in their own tongue what god has said to them in a foreign tongue? there is hardly a period in luther's life that is entirely free from spiritual affliction. in this respect luther shares the common lot of godly men in responsible positions in church or state during critical times. moreover, luther with all christians believed in a personal and incessantly active devil. luther's devil was not the denatured metaphysical and scientific devil of modern times, which meets us in the form of the principle of negation, or logical contradiction, or a demoralizing tendency and influence, but an energetic devil, possessed of an intelligence and will of his own, and going about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. luther accepted the teaching of the bible that this devil is related to men's sinning, that men can be made to do, and are doing, his will, and are led about by the devil like slaves. luther knew that for his own reasons god permits the devil to afflict his children, as happened to job and paul. add to this the reaction that must have set in after luther had quitted the stirring scenes and the severe ordeals through which he had passed before the imperial court at worms. in the silence and solitude of his secluded asylum in the thuringian forest the recent events in which he had been a principal actor passed in review before his mind, and he began to spell out many a grave and ominous meaning from them. if it is true that the devil loves to find a lonely man, here was his chance. and if the devil ever had material interests at stake in attacking a particular person, he made no mistake in assailing this isolated monk, martin luther, in his moments of brooding and depression. lastly, luther's physical condition at the wartburg must be taken into consideration. trained to frugal habits in the cloister and habituated to fasts and mortification of the flesh, luther found the new mode of living which he was compelled to adopt uncongenial. he was the guest of a prince and was treated like a nobleman. the rich and abundant food that was served him was a disastrous diet for him, even though he did not yield overmuch to his appetite. he complains in his letters to friends during the wartburg period about his physical distress, chiefly constipation, to which he was constitutionally prone. but after all these elements have been noted, it must be stated that the reports about diabolical visitations to which luther was subject at the wartburg are overdrawn for a purpose by catholics. luther's references to this matter in his letters written at the time suggest only spiritual conflicts, but no physical contact with the devil. reminiscences of his first exile which he relates at a much later period to the guests at his table are also exaggerated. these soul-battles, far from unfitting him for the work of translating the bible, were rather a fine training-school through which god put his humble servant, and helped him to understand the sacred text over which he sat poring in deep meditation. lastly, catholic critics have pronounced luther intellectually disqualified for translating the bible. his greek scholarship, they say, was poor. he had barely begun to study that language. it stands to reason that his translation must be very faulty. they also emphasize the rapidity with which luther worked. the translation of the entire new testament was completed between december , , and september the following year. (it will be remembered that luther had returned to wittenberg in the first days of march, , and all through the spring and summer of that year was busily engaged, with the aid of friends, on his german new testament.) finally, catholics, in their efforts to belittle luther's works, have claimed that he plagiarized a german translation already in existence, the so-called codex teplensis. it seems a mere waste of time to answer these criticisms. they remind one of a scene in the life of columbus: the learned catholic divines of salamanca had to their own satisfaction routed the bold navigator with their arguments that he could not possibly start out by his proposed route. no doubt, some of them contended that he never made his famous voyage even after his return. what profit can there be in arguing the impossibility of a thing when the reality confronts you? luther's translation is before the world; everybody who knows greek can compare it with the original text. the teplensian translation, too, can be looked into. in fact, all this has been done by competent scholars, and luther's translation has been pronounced a masterpiece. not only does it reproduce the original text faithfully, but it speaks a good and correct german. luther's translation of the bible is now regarded as one of the classics of german literature. it is true that the philological attainments of the world have increased since luther, and that improvements in his translations have been suggested, but they do not affect any essential teaching of the christian religion. bible commentators to-day are still citing luther's rendering as an authority. the movement recently started in germany to replace luther's translation by a modern one deserves little consideration because it originated in quarters that are professedly hostile to christianity. the things in luther's german bible which vex catholics most are in the original greek text. luther did not manufacture them, he merely reproduced them. it is the fact that luther made it possible for germans to see what is really in the bible that hurts. to please the catholics, luther should not have translated the bible at all. the truth of this remark is readily seen when one examines specific exceptions which catholics have taken to luther's translation. they find fault with luther's translation of the angel's address to mary: "du holdselige," that is, thou gracious one, or well-favored one. the catholics demand that this term should be rendered "full of grace," because in their belief mary is really the chief dispenser of grace. they complain that in matt. , luther has rendered the baptist's call: "tut busse," that is, repent, instead of, do penance. they fault luther for translating in acts , : "und verkuendigten, was sie ausgerichtet hatten," that is, they reported what they had accomplished. catholics regard this text as a stronghold for their doctrine of confession, especially for that part of it which makes satisfaction by works of penance a part of confession; they insist that the text must be rendered: they declared their deeds, that is, the works which they had performed by order of their confessors. catholics charge luther with having inserted a word in rom. , , which he translates: "das gesetz richtet nur zorn an," that is, the law worketh only wrath, or nothing but wrath. they object to the word "only," because in their view man can by his own natural powers make himself love the law. they set up a great hue and cry about another insertion in rom. , , which luther translates: "so halten wir es nun, dass der mensch gerecht werde ohne des gesetzes werk', allein durch den glauben," that is, we conclude, therefore, that a man is justified without the deeds of the law, by faith alone; they object to the word "alone," because in their teaching justification is by faith plus works. it is known that there are translations before luther which contain the same insertion. on this insertion luther deserves to be heard himself. "i knew full well," he says, "that in the latin and greek texts of rom. , the word solum (alone) does not occur, and there was no need of the papists teaching me that. true, these four letters sola, at which the dunces stare as a cow at a new barn-door, are not in the text. but they do not see that they express the meaning of the text, and they must be inserted if we wish to clearly and forcibly translate the text. when i undertook to translate the bible into german, my aim was to speak german, not latin or greek. now, it is a peculiarity of our german language, whenever a statement is made regarding two things, one of which is affirmed while the other is negatived, to add the word solum, 'alone,' to the word 'not' or 'none.' as, for instance: the peasant brings only grain, and no money. again: indeed, i have no money now, but only grain. as yet i have only eaten, and not drunk. have you only written, and not read what you have written? innumerable instances of this kind are in daily usage. while the latin or the greek language does not do this, the german has this peculiarity, that in all statements of this kind it adds the word 'only' (or 'alone'), in order to express the negation completely and clearly. for, though i may say: the peasant brings grain and no money, still the expression 'no money' is not as perfect and plain as when i say: the peasant brings grain only, and no money. thus the word 'alone' or 'only' helps the word 'no' to become a complete, clear german statement. when you wish to speak german, you must not consult the letters in the latin language, as these dunces are doing, but you must inquire of a mother how she talks to her children, of the children how they talk to each other on the street, of the common people on the market-place. watch them how they frame their speech, and make your translation accordingly, and they will understand it and know that some one is speaking german to them. for instance, christ says: _ex abundantia cordis os loquitur._ if i were to follow the dunces, i would have to spell out those words and translate: 'aus dem ueberfluss des herzens redet der mund!' tell me, would that be german? what german would understand that? what sort of thing is 'abundance of heart (ueberfluss des herzens)' ? no german person could explain that, unless he were to say that, possibly, the person had enlargement of the heart, or too much heart. and that would not be the correct meaning. 'ueberfluss des herzens' is not german, as little as it is german to say 'ueberfluss des hauses (abundance of house), ueberfluss des kachelofens (abundance of tile-oven), ueberfluss der bank (abundance of bench).' this is the way the mother speaks to her children and the common people to one another: 'wes das herz voll ist, des gehet der mund ueber.' that is the way to speak good german. that is what i have endeavored to do, but i did not succeed nor achieve my aim in all instances. latin terms are an exceedingly great hindrance to one who wishes to talk good german." ( , .) in insisting on the principle that a translation must reproduce the exact thought of a language, that idiomatic utterances of the one language must be replaced by similar utterances in the other, and that the genius of both the language from which and the one into which the translation is made must be observed by the translator, luther has every rhetoric and grammar on his side. those who find fault with him on this score deserve no better titles than those which he applied to them, all the more because he knew the true reason of their faultfinding. the catholic charges of bible perversion against luther flow, not from a knowledge of good grammar, but from bad theology. luther was, of course, fundamentally in error according to the opinion of catholics by not making his translation from the approved and authorized latin vulgate, the official catholic bible, but from the greek original. to return favor for favor, we shall note a few places where catholics might bring their own bible into better harmony with the original text. in gen. , their translation reads: "she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel." this rendering has been adopted in order to enable them to refer this primeval prophecy of the future redeemer to mary. gen. , they have rendered: "my iniquity is greater than that i may deserve pardon." this is to favor their teaching of justification on the basis of merit. the rendering "speak not much" for "use not vain repetitions" in matt. , weakens the force of the lord's warning. in rom. , the catholic bible tells its readers: "let every man abound in his own sense," whatever the sense of that direction may be. what the apostle really means is: "let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." in gal. , the catholic bible calls the law "our pedagog in christ"; the correct rendering is: "our schoolmaster to bring us unto christ." in the catholic bible the following remarkable event takes place in luke , : "the rich man also died: and he was buried in hell." the pall-bearers, funeral director, and mourners at these obsequies deserve a double portion of our sympathy. in acts , we are told that the disciples at jerusalem were persevering "in the communication of the breaking of the bread." the last verse in galatians, chap. , is made to read: "so then, brethren, we are not the children of the bondwoman, but of the free: by the freedom wherewith christ has made us free." the next chapter begins: "stand fast," etc. luther has expressed opinions of certain books of the bible which question their divine authorship. these opinions are being assiduously canvassed by catholic writers to prove that luther accepted only such portions of the bible as suited his purpose, and rejected all the rest as spurious. he is said to have arrogated to himself the authority to declare any book of the scriptures inspired or not inspired, and is, therefore, justly regarded as the father of the higher criticism of modern times, which has taken the bible to pieces and destroyed its power. but catholic writers fail to state that the uncertainty which luther occasionally manifests regarding the divine origin and authenticity of certain books of the bible is due to the confusion which the catholic church has created by decreeing that the apocryphal books shall be considered on a par with the canonical writings of the bible. setting aside the verdict of the ancient church, and even of their famous church-father jerome, the catholic church has by an arbitrary decree ruled the following books into the bible: esdras, esdras, tobit, judith, the rest of esther, the wisdom of solomon, ecclesiasticus (sirach), baruch, with the epistle of jeremiah, the song of the three holy children, the history of susanna, bel and the dragon, the prayer of manasses, and maccabees. these writings are called apocrypha because their divine origin is in doubt. scrupulously careful to keep the divinely inspired writings separate from all other writings, no matter how godly their contents might seem to be, the church of the old covenant excluded these writings from the canon, that is, from the list of fully accredited inspired writings. besides, in the catholic bible in luther's days there were apocryphal portions inserted in canonical writings like esther. in the course of his studies luther learned that certain writings in the catholic bible represented as biblical were no part of the bible. acting upon the direction which the lord gave to the jews: "search the scriptures . . . they are they which testify of me" (john , ), he considered this a good test of the genuineness of any portion of the bible, viz., that it conveyed to him knowledge of christ and the way of salvation. the bible, he held, can speak only for, never against christ. by this principle he determined for himself the respective value of various writings in the bible. ecclesiastes and jonah did not appeal to him as very full of christ. in the new testament he seems strongly attracted by the gospel of john. but there are statements in his writings in which he expresses a preference for matthew, mark, and luke. one must understand luther's view-point and aim on a given occasion to grasp these valuations. in regard to job he expressed the opinion that the book is dramatic rather than historical: it does not relate actual occurrences, but rather points a moral in the form of a narrative. in the new testament the overgreat emphasis which he thought james placed on works as against faith caused him to depreciate this epistle and to question its apostolic authorship. luther also knew that in the earliest centuries of the christian era the question had been raised whether second peter, jude, james, revelation, really belonged in the canon. unbiased readers will see in all these remarks of luther nothing but the earnest struggle of a sincere soul to get at the real word of god. a person may express a preference for certain portions of the bible without declaring all the rest of the bible worthless. doubts concerning the divine character of certain, portions of the scripture arise and are occasionally expressed by the best of christians. but luther's critical attitude toward certain books of the bible is either misunderstood or misrepresented when it is made to appear that luther permanently rejected, or tore out of his bible, such books as esther, jonah, ecclesiastes, second peter, james, hebrews, jude, and revelation. some catholics go so far as to charge luther with having rejected the pentateuch, the first five books in the bible, because he speaks slightingly of moses' law as a means of justification. not only did luther translate and take into his german bible all the writings just named, but he also cites them in his doctrinal writings as proof-texts. in the index of scripture citations which dr. hoppe, the editor of the only complete edition of luther's works printed in america, has added to the last volume we find such references to job, to ecclesiastes, to jonah, to second peter, to james, to jude, to hebrews, to revelation. we have counted only such references as show that luther employed these writings as divine in his doctrinal arguments. by actual enumeration it would be found that he has referred to them much more frequently. on jonah, second peter, and jude he wrote special commentaries, and for all the books of the bible he furnished illuminating summaries, in some cases, as in revelation, the summaries are furnished chapter for chapter. this goes to prove that luther had ultimately reached very clear and settled opinions regarding the authenticity and divine character of those books of the bible which he is charged with having blasphemously criticized. luther's criticism of these portions of the bible is the most respectable criticism that has come to our knowledge. it shows his scrupulous care not to admit anything as being god's word of the divine origin of which he was not fully convinced. it is rome, not luther, that has vitiated the bible and created confusion in christian minds, by admitting into the sacred volume portions which do not belong there. luther's questioning attitude towards the books of the bible, which we have named is the attitude of the early christians. there was doubt expressed in the first centuries as to the genuineness of these books, and it required convincing information in those days when facilities for communication were poor to secure the adoption of the books which we now have in the bible. why do not the catholics embrace the early christians in their charge of bible mutilation? nor were those early christians who questioned the divine authorship of certain books about the origin of which they had no definite knowledge any less christian than those who had convincing information about them. for the former possessed in the writings which they had accepted as authentic the same truths which the latter had embraced. luther voices his profound reverence for the scriptures in innumerable places throughout his writings. "the holy scriptures," he says, "did not grow on earth." ( , .) again: "when studying the scriptures, you must reflect that it is god himself who is speaking to you." ( , .) again: "the scriptures are older and possess greater authority than all councils and fathers. moreover, all the angels side with god and the scriptures. . . . if age, duration, greatness, multitude [of followers], holiness, are inducements to believe something, why do we believe men who live but a short time rather than god, who is the oldest, the greatest, the holiest, the mightiest of all? why do we not believe all the angels, since a single one of them has greater authority than the pope? why do we not believe the bible, when one passage of scripture outweighs all the books in the world?" ( , .) again: "the bible alone is the true lord and master over all writings on earth. if this is not so, of what use is the bible? then let us cast it aside, and be satisfied with the books and teachings of men." ( , .) again: "all scripture is full of christ, the son of god and mary. its sole object is to teach us to know him as a distinct person, and that through him we may in eternity behold the father and the holy ghost, one god. the scriptures are ajar to him who has the son, and in the same proportion as his faith in christ increases the scriptures become clear to him" ( , .) how little luther would have in common with the destructive higher critics of the bible in our day, we can gather from the following statement: "if cutting and tearing the bible to pieces were a great art, what a famous bible would i produce! especially if i were to lay my hand on the important passages, those on which the articles of our faith rest. . . . my position, then, is this: in view of the fact that our faith is supported by holy writ, we must not depart from its words as they read, nor from the order in which they are placed. . . . otherwise, what is to become of the bible?" ( , .) . luther a preacher of violence against the hierarchy. in his fight against papal supremacy luther discovered that the roman priesthood was the pope's chief support. the principle of community of interests had knitted both the higher and the lower clergy, the cardinals, archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, parish priests, monks, etc., together into one firmly compacted society. all its members understood that they were working in a common cause, and kept in constant and close rapport with one another: what concerned one concerned all the rest. each aided and abetted the other, and all strove jointly to exalt their master, the pope. like a huge net the rule of priests was spread over mankind, and all men, with their spiritual and secular interests, were caught in this net. the system was called a hierarchy, that is, a holy government. the priesthood and the holy orders were the pope's collateral. all its members derived what authority they possessed from the pope; their fortunes were bound up in the pope's. this priest-rule luther overthrew by causing men to see the liberty with which christ has made them free. catholic critics claim that by so doing luther rebelled against an ordinance of god. we have shown in chapter that luther acknowledges in the church of christ a ministry that exists by divine appointment. hence the catholic charge that luther revolted from god when he disputed the divine right of the hierarchy is silly. however, luther is said to have "recklessly encouraged the destruction of the episcopate, and openly commanded sacrilege and murder" to mobs. the appeal of luther that the _rule_ of bishops be exterminated is interpreted to mean that the bishops be exterminated. this is one of the most wanton charges that could be preferred against luther. by the theses against tetzel the attention of many prominent men in germany was attracted to luther. princes and noblemen of the empire had for some time been studying from a secular point of view the evils which luther had begun to attack on spiritual grounds. these men understood the character of the roman hierarchy much better than luther. they saw at once that luther's action would lead to serious complication that might ultimately have to be settled with the sword. when luther was still dreaming about convincing the pope with arguments from scripture, german noblemen were preparing to defend him against physical violence. they knew that the hierarchy would not without a fierce struggle submit to any curtailment of their power. they offered luther armed support. luther recoiled with horror from this suggestion. in a letter from the wartburg which he wrote to his friend spalatin who was still tarrying at worms, luther refers to one of these warlike knights as follows: "what hutten has in mind you can see [from the writings of the knight which he enclosed]. i would not like to see men fight for the gospel with force and bloodshed. i have answered that parson (_dem menschen_) accordingly. by the word the world has been overcome, the church has been preserved; by the word it will also be restored. as to antichrist, he began his rule without physical force, and will also be destroyed without physical force, by the word." ( , .) the letter from which these words are quoted is dated january , . nine months before this date, on may , when he had been on the wartburg about ten days, luther writes to the same party: "it is for good reasons that i have not answered your letter ere this: i hesitated from fear that the report recently gone out of my being held captive might prompt somebody to intercept my letters. a great many things are related about me at this place; however, the opinion is beginning to prevail that i was captured by friends sent for this purpose from franconia. to-morrow the safe-conduct granted me by the emperor expires. i am sorry that, as you write me, there is an intention to apply the very severe [imperial] edict also for the purpose of exploring men's consciences; not on my account, but because they [the papists] are ill-advised in this and will bring misfortune on their own heads, and because they continue to load themselves with very great odium. oh, what hatred will this shameless violence kindle! however, they may have their way; perhaps the time of their visitation is near. --so far i have not heard from our people either at wittenberg or elsewhere. about the time of our arrival at eisenach the young men [the students] at erfurt had, during the night, damaged a few priests' dwellings, from indignation because the dean of st. severus institute, a great papist, had caught magister draco, a gentleman who is favorably inclined to us, by his cassock and had publicly dragged him from the choir, pretending that he had been excommunicated for having gone to meet me at my arrival at erfurt. meanwhile people are fearing greater disturbances; the magistrates are conniving, for the local priests are in ill repute, and it is being reported that the artisans are allying themselves with the student-body. the prophetic saying seems about to come true which runs: erfurt is another prague. [there was rioting in prague in the days of hus, whom rome burned at the stake.]--i was told yesterday that a certain priest at gotha has met with rough treatment because his people had bought certain estates (i do not know which), in order to increase the revenue of the church, and, under pretext of their ecclesiastical immunity, had refused to pay the incumbrances and taxes on the same. we see that the people, as also erasmus writes, are unable and unwilling any longer to bear the yoke of the pope and the papists. and still we do not cease coercing and burdening them, although--now that everything has been brought to light--we have lost our reputation and their good will, and our former halo of sanctity can no longer avail or exert the influence which it exerted formerly. heretofore we have increased hatred by violence and by violence have suppressed it; however, whether we can continue suppressing it experience will show." ( , .) to melanchthon he wrote about this time: "i hear that at erfurt they are resorting to violence against the dwellings of priests. i am surprised that the city council permits this and connives at it, and that our dear friend lang keeps silent. for although it is good that those impious men who will not desist are kept in check, still this procedure will bring the gospel into disrepute, and will cause men justly to spurn it. i would write to lang, but as yet i dare not. for such a display of friendliness to our cause as these people show is very offensive to me, because it clearly shows that we are not yet worthy servants in god's sight, and that satan is mocking and laughing at our efforts [of reform]. oh, how i do fear that all this is like the fig tree in the parable, of which the lord, matt. , predicts that it will merely sprout before the day of judgment, but will bear no fruit. what we teach is, indeed, the truth; however, it amounts to nothing if we do not practise what we preach." ( , .) disquieting rumors of excesses that were being perpetrated by radical followers of the evangelical teaching had reached luther also from wittenberg. to obtain a clear insight into the actual state of affairs, he made a secret visit to his home town in the beginning of december, . returning to his exile, he wrote his _faithful admonition to all christians to avoid tumult and rebellion._ in this treatise luther reasons as follows: the papacy, with all its great institutions, cloisters, universities, laws and doctrines, is nothing but lies. on lies it was raised, by lies it is supported, with lies and frauds and cheats it deceives, misleads, and oppresses men. accordingly, all that is necessary to overthrow its dominion is to recognize its lying character, and to publish it and the papacy will collapse as if blown aside by the breath of the almighty, as scripture says it shall happen to antichrist. to start a riot against the papists would never improve them, and would only cause them to vilify the cause of their opponents. in times of tumult, people lose their reason and do more harm to innocent people than to the guilty. public wrongs should be redressed by the magistrates, who are vested with authority for that purpose. no matter how just a cause may be, it never justifies rioting. luther declares that he will rather side with those who suffer in, than with those who start, a riot. rioting is forbidden in god's law (dent. , ; , ). this particular rioting against the papists has been instigated by the devil, in order to divert people's minds from the real spiritual issues of the times, and to bring the cause of the gospel into disrepute. luther feels these tumultuous proceedings as a disgrace. "people who read and understand my teaching correctly," he says, "do not start riots. they were not taught such things by me. if any engage in such proceedings and drag my name into it, what can i do to stop them? how many things are the papists doing in the name of christ which christ never commanded!" luther begs all who glory in the name of christians to conduct themselves as paul demands cor. , : "giving no offense in anything, that the ministry be not blamed." ( , ff.) whoever can, ought to treat himself to the reading of this fine treatise of the exiled monk of wittenberg. the iconoclastic uprising which broke out in wittenberg in the closing days of the month of february, , finally decided luther, at the risk of his life, to quit his exile and to fight the devil, who was trying to subvert his good doctrine by such wicked practises. the world knows that it was luther who quelled the riot in his town. luther's face was ever sternly set against those who wanted to wage the lord's wars with the devil's weapons. no murder or sacrilege that was committed in those days can be laid at the door of luther's teaching. the catholics are trying to divert attention from their own unwarranted and violent proceedings by charging luther with preaching a war of extermination against their hierarchy. how did they treat the just claims and reasonable demands of the german nation for measures that were admitted to be crying needs of the times? no german diet met but a long list of grievances was submitted by the suffering people. it was of no avail. the haughty clergy rode over the people's rights and prayers rough-shod. the tyrannous devices which their cunning had invented were executed with brazen impudence. how had they treated simple laymen in whose possession a bible was found? what was their inquisitorial court but the anteroom to holy butchers' shambles, the legal vestibule to murder that had been sanctioned by the popes? how had they treated luther? if the papal nuncio at the diet of worms had had his way with the emperor and the princes, luther would not have left that city alive. they openly declared to the emperor that he was not obliged to keep his plighted word for a safe-conduct to a heretic. these people come now at this late day prating about violence that they have suffered from this sacrilegious and bloodthirsty luther. they themselves were the perpetrators of the most appalling violence against god and men: their whole system rests, as johann gerhard in his famous _confessio catholica_ rightly asserts, on _fraus et vis,_ that is, fraud and violence. . luther, anarchist and despot all in one. extremes met, with most disastrous effect-so catholic writers tell us-in luther's views of the political rights of men. at one time he was so outspoken in his condemnation of the oppression which the common people were suffering from the clergy, the nobility, and their aristocratic governors that he incited them to discontent with their humble lot in life, to unrest, and to open rebellion against their magistrates. at another time he became the spokesman for the most pronounced absolutism and despotism. he turned suddenly against the very people whose cause he had so signally championed, and who hailed him as their prophet and leader. when the poor, downtrodden people needed him most, luther cowardly deserted them, and by frenzied utterances excited the nobility to slay the common people without mercy in the most ruthless fashion, and even promised the lords whom he had denounced as tyrants heaven for enacting the barbaric cruelties to which he was urging them. this is the catholic portrayal of luther during the peasants' war. the relation of the peasant uprising to luther's preaching is grossly misrepresented when the impression is created that luther had before this sad upheaval worked hand in glove with the malcontent rustics for the overthrow of the government. disturbances of this kind had been periodical occurrences in europe for many hundreds of years. the heavy taxes and tithes, and the forced labor which the lords exacted from their tenants, who were little better than serfs, the galling restrictions in regard to hunting, fishing, gathering wood in the forests which they had imposed on them, the foreign roman law under which they tried cases in court, and, in general, their haughty and contemptuous bearing toward the common people had for many generations created strained relations between the upper and the lower classes. the estrangement which developed into open defiance existed among the peasants before luther had begun to preach. nor can luther's teaching be said to have fanned the slumbering embers of discontent into a huge flame. the liberty of a christian man which he had proclaimed was not such liberty as the peasants demanded and wrested to themselves when the revolt had reached its height. luther had consistently taught that obedience to the government is a christian duty. he had, as we have shown in the preceding chapter, warned with telling force against riot, tumult, and sedition. he had deprecated any allying of the cause of the gospel and of spiritual freedom with the carnal strivings of disaffected men for mere temporal and secular advantages. he had reminded christians that it was their duty to suffer wrong rather than do wrong. on the other hand, luther had pleaded the cause of the poor before the lords, and had earnestly warned the nobility not to continue their tyranny, but conciliate their subjects by yielding to their just demands. he had fearlessly pointed out to the lords what was galling in their conduct to the common, people-their pride and luxurious living, their disregard of the commonest rights of man, their despotic dealings with their humble subjects, their rude behavior and exasperating conduct toward the men, women, and children whom they made toil and slave for them. maintaining, thus, an honest equipoise between the two contrary forces, and dealing out even-handed justice to both, luther was conscious of serving the true interests of either side and laboring for the common welfare of all. with his implicit faith in the power of god's word he was hoping for a gradual improvement of the situation. the conflict would be adjusted in a quiet and orderly manner by the truth obtaining greater and greater sway over the minds of men. luther had had no inkling of an impending clash between the peasants and the nobility when the revolt broke out with the fury of a cyclone. luther was shocked. he promptly hurried to the scene of the disturbances by request of the count of mansfeld. it speaks volumes for the integrity of luther that both sides were willing to permit him to arbitrate their differences. the invitation came originally from the peasants and was addressed to luther, melanchthon, bugenhagen, and the elector frederick jointly, but it was not acted on until count albert invited luther to come to eisleben. the _exhortation to peace on the twelve articles of the peasants_ which luther issued, after having investigated the situation, rebukes the lords with considerably more sternness than the commoners, but makes fair suggestions for the composition of the differences. before luther takes up the "twelve articles of the peasants" for detailed discussion, he informs them that he considers their whole procedure wrong, even if all their demands were just, because they have resorted to force to secure their right. a beautiful sentiment for an anarchist to utter, is it not? in article i the peasants demanded freedom to elect their own pastors, who were to preach the gospel without any human additions. that this request should be embodied in the peasants' plea for their political rights, and that it should be made the foremost demand, is highly suggestive as to the principal cause of their unrest. to this article luther gave his unreserved endorsement. article ii sought to regulate the income of priests-again a very suggestive request: preachers were to receive for their sustenance no more than the tithes, the remainder of the church-income was to be set aside so as to render it unnecessary to tax the poor in war-times. on this point luther held that the tithes belong to the government, and to turn them over to any one else would be simple robbery. article iii demanded the abolition of serfdom, however, as a test whether the christianity of the lords was genuine. the peasants implied that their political liberty had been secured by christ, and that the lords were withholding it from them. this argument luther rejected as a carnal perversion of the gospel. articles iv-x submitted these demands: the poor man is to be accorded the right to fish and hunt; all wooded lands usurped by bishops or noblemen without making payment therefor are to revert to the community, and in case payment had been made, a settlement is to be effected by mutual agreement; burdensome exactions, services, taxes, and fines are to be rescinded; court trials are to be free from partiality and jealousy; meadows and lands which of right belong to the community are to be returned by their present owners. on these points luther suggests that the opinions of good lawyers be obtained. article xi deals with the right of heriot, or the death-tax imposed upon the widow or heir of a tenant. this was approved. in the last article the peasants express their readiness to withdraw any or all of these requests that are shown to be contrary to scripture, and ask permission to substitute others for them. luther was in a fair way of bringing about an amicable settlement of the differences. philip of hesse had at the same time come to a full agreement with the peasants in his domains, and peace seemed near, when the real genius of the whole peasant movement, muenzer, interfered. luther had suspected for some time that this unscrupulous agitator was spreading the teaching of unbridled license under pretense of preaching liberty, and that the mystical piety which he was reported as practising, his leaning towards the reform movement, and his references to luther and the "new gospel," were nothing but the angel's garment which a very wicked devil had borrowed for purposes of deception. when muenzer at the head of hordes of men who through his inflammatory speeches had been turned into unreasoning brutes was spreading ruin and desolation along his path, wiping out in a few days the products of the patient labors of generations, subverting the fundamental principles of honesty, justice, and morality on which the organized public life of the community and the private life of the individual must rest, and rapidly changing even the well-meaning and reasonable among the peasants into frenzied madmen, luther recognized that conciliatory measures and arbitration would not avail with these mobs. his duty as a teacher of god's word and as a loyal subject of his government demanded prompt and stern action from him. however, back of the terrible mien with which luther now faced the wild peasants there is a heart of love; in the appalling language which he now uses against men whose cause he had befriended there is discernible a note of pity for the poor deluded wretches who thought they were rearing a paradise when they were building bedlam. above all, the great heart of luther is torn with anguish over the shame that is now being heaped on the blessed gospel of his dear lord. luther did not desert the peasants, but they deserted him; they were the traitors, not he. there is a diabolical streak in the character of thomas muenzer. he parades as the people's man, and the german people in the sixteenth century never had a worse enemy. his fluent speech and great oratory seemed honey to the peasants, but they were the veriest poison. he spoke the language of a saint, and lived the life of a profligate and a reprobate. it is hard to believe that his error was merely the honest fanaticism of a blind bigot; there is a malign element in it that betrays conscious wickedness. this raving demon should be studied more by catholics when they investigate the peasants' revolt. they have their eyes on luther; his every word and action are placed under the microscope. but the real culprit is treated as the hero in a tragedy. he was a blind enthusiast; he mistook his aims; he selected wrong means and methods for achieving his aim. he did wickedly, and we may have to curse him some for decency's sake, but be deserves pity, too, for he was the misguided pupil of that arch-heretic luther. that is catholic equity in estimating luther's share in the peasant uprising. we only note in conclusion that thomas muenzer died in the arms of the alone-saving church, a penitent prodigal that had returned to the bosom of "holy mother." luther did not die thus, and that makes a great deal of difference. catholics father upon luther not only the peasants' revolt, but every revolutionary movement which since then has occurred in europe. the political unrest which has at various times agitated the masses in france, england, and germany, the changes in the government which were brought about in such times, are all attributed to the revolutionary tendencies in luther's writings. so is the disrespect shown by citizens of the modern state to persons in authority, the bold and scathing criticism indulged in by subjects against their government. there is hardly a political disturbance anywhere but what ingenious catholics will manage to connect with luther. read luther, and you will inevitably become an anarchist. but luther is also credited with the very opposite of anarchism. when the peasants' revolt had been put down by the lords, they began to strengthen their despotic power over the people, and a worse tyranny resulted than had existed before. it is pointed out that absolutism, the claim of kings that they are ruling by divine right and are not responsible to the people, has taken firm root in all protestant countries, and that even the protestant churches in these countries are mere fixtures of the state. this, too, we are asked to believe, is a result of luther's teaching. luther is not only the spiritual ring-leader of mobs, but also the sycophant of despots. it is particularly offensive to catholics to see luther hailed as the champion of political liberty. let us try and make up our minds about luther's views of the secular government from luther's own words. dr. waring, in his _political theories of luther,_ has made a very serviceable collection of statements of luther on this matter. "in his tract on secular authority ( , ff.) luther maintains that the state exists by god's will and institution; for the apostle paul writes: 'let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. for there is no power but of god: the powers that be are ordained of god. whosoever therefore resisteth the power resiseth [tr. note: sic] the ordinance of god; and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation' (rom. , . ). the apostle peter exhorts: 'submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the lord's sake, whether it be to the king, as supreme, or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them that do well' ( pet. , . ). the right of the sword has existed since the beginning of the world. when cain killed his brother abel, he was so fearful of being put to death himself that god laid a special prohibition thereupon that no one should kill him, which fear he would not have had, had he not seen and heard from adam that murderers should be put to death. further, after the flood, god repeated and confirmed it in explicit language, when he declared: 'whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed' (gen. , ). this law was ratified later by the law of moses: 'but if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbor, to slay him with guile, thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die' (ex. , ); and yet again: 'life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe' (ex. , - ). christ confirmed it also when he said to peter in the garden: 'all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword' (matt. , ). the words of christ: 'but i say unto you, that ye resist not evil' (matt. , . ), 'love your enemies, . . . do good to them that hate you' (matt. , ), and similar passages, having great weight, might seem to indicate that christians under the gospel should not have a worldly sword; but the human race is to be divided into two classes, one belonging to the kingdom of god and the other to the kingdom of the world. to the first class belong all true believers in christ and under christ, for christ is king and lord in the kingdom of god (ps. , , and throughout the scriptures). these people need no worldly sword or law, for they have the holy ghost in their hearts who suffer wrong gladly and themselves do wrong to no one. there is no need of quarrel or contention, of court or punishment. st. paul says: 'the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners' ( tim. , ), for the righteous man of himself does everything that the law demands, and more; but the unrighteous do nothing right, and they therefore need the law to teach, constrain, and compel them to do right. a good tree requires no instruction or law that it may bring forth good fruit, but its nature causes it to bear fruit after its kind. thus are all christians so fashioned through the spirit and faith that they do right naturally, more than man could teach them with all laws. all those who are not christians in this particular sense belong to the kingdom of the world. inasmuch as there are few who are true christians in faith and life, god established, in addition to the kingdom of god, another rule-that of temporal power and civil government, and gave it the sword to compel the wicked to be orderly. it is for this worldly estate that law is given. christ rules without law, alone through the spirit, but worldly government protects the peace with the sword. likewise, true christians, although not in need of it for themselves, nevertheless render cheerful obedience to this government, through love for the others who need it. a christian himself may wield the sword when called upon to maintain peace among men and to punish wrong. this authority, which is god's handmaid, as st. paul says, is as necessary and good as other worldly callings. god therefore instituted two regimens, or governments-the spiritual, which, through the holy ghost under christ, makes christians and pious people, and the worldly or temporal, which warns the non-christians and the wicked that they must maintain external peace. we must clearly distinguish between these two powers and let them remain-the one that makes pious, the other that makes for external peace and protects against wickedness. neither one is sufficient in the world without the other; for without the spiritual estate of christ no one can be good before god through the worldly estate. where civil government alone rules, there would be hypocrisy, though its laws were like god's commandments themselves; for without the holy spirit in the heart none can be pious, whatever good works he may perform. where the spiritual estate rules over land and people, there will be unbridled wickedness and opportunity for all kinds of villainy, for the common world cannot accept or understand it.-but it may be said, if, then, christians do not need the temporal power or law, why does st. paul say to all christians: 'let every soul be subject unto the higher powers' (rom. , )? in reply to this, it is to be said again that christians among themselves and by and for themselves require no law or sword, for to them they are not necessary or useful. but because a true christian on earth lives for and serves not himself, but his neighbor, so he also, from the nature of his spirit, does that which he himself does not need, but which is useful and necessary to his neighbor. the sword is a great and necessary utility to the whole world for the maintenance of peace, the punishment of wrong, and the restraint of the wicked. so the christian pays tribute and tax, honors civil authority, serves, assists, and does everything he can do to maintain that authority with honor and fear." (p. ff.) in his _appeal to the german nobility_ ( , ff.) luther says: "forasmuch as the temporal power has been ordained by god for the punishment of the bad and the protection of the good, therefore we must let it do its duty throughout the whole christian body, without respect of persons, whether it strike popes, bishops, priests, monks, nuns, or whoever it may be. if it were sufficient reason for fettering the temporal power that it is inferior among the offices of christianity to the offices of priest or confessor, to the spiritual estate,-if this were so, then we ought to restrain tailors, cobblers, masons, carpenters, cooks, cellarmen, peasants, and all secular workmen from providing the pope or bishops, priests and monks, with shoes, clothes, houses, or victuals, or from paying them tithes. but if these laymen are allowed to do their work without restraint, what do the romanist scribes mean by their laws? they mean that they withdraw themselves from the operation of temporal christian power, simply in order that they may be free to do evil, and thus fulfil what st. peter said: 'there shall be false teachers among you, . . . and through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you' ( pet. , . ). therefore the temporal christian power must exercise its office without let or hindrance, without considering whom it may strike, whether pope or bishop, or priest. whoever is guilty, let him suffer for it.-whatever the ecclesiastical law has said in opposition to this is merely the invention of romanist arrogance. for this is what st. paul says to all christians: 'let every soul' (i presume, including the popes) 'be subject unto the higher powers. . . . do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same, . . . for he beareth not the sword in vain; for he is the minister of god, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil' (rom. , - ). also st. peter: 'submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the lord's sake; . . . for so is the will of god' ( pet. , . ). he has also foretold that men would come who would despise government ( pet. ), as has come to pass through ecclesiastical law.-although the work of the temporal power relates to the body, it yet belongs to the spiritual estate. therefore it must do its duty without let or hindrance upon all members of the whole body, to punish or urge, as guilt may deserve, or need may require, without respect of pope, bishops, or priests, let them threaten or excommunicate as they will. that is why a guilty priest is deprived of his priesthood before being given over to the secular arm; whereas this would not be right if the secular powers had not authority over him already by divine ordinance.-it is, indeed, past bearing that the spiritual law should esteem so highly the liberty, life, and property of the clergy, as if laymen were not as good spiritual christians, or not equally members of the church. why should your body, life, goods, and honor be free, and not mine, seeing that we are equal as christians, and have received alike baptism, faith, spirit, and all things? if a priest is killed, the country is laid under an interdict; why not also if a peasant is killed? whence comes this great difference among equal christians? simply from human laws and inventions." (p. ff.) this citation deserves to be specially pondered in view of the catholic charge that luther was a defender of absolutism, the divine right of kings. if rome's attitude to kingcraft be studied, it will be found that rome has been the supporter of the most tyrannous rulers. it is well, too, to remember rome's claim of a "divine right" of priests. special laws of exemption and immunity, laws creating special privileges for priests, are not unknown in the annals of the world's history. whoever can, ought to read the entire _appeal to the german nobility;_ it will tell him many things that explain the peasants' revolt. in his _severe booklet against the peasants_ ( , ff.) luther explains the reasons for the harsh language which he uses against the marauders. "he says that the maxims dealing with mercy belong to the kingdom of god and among christians, not to the kingdom of the world, which is the instrument of godly wrath upon the wicked. the instrument in the hand of the state is not a garland of roses or a flower of love, but a naked sword. as i declared at the time, he says, so declare i yet: let every one who can, as he may be able, cut, stab, choke, and strike the stiff-necked, obdurate, blind, infatuated peasants; that mercy may be shown towards those who are destroyed, driven away, and misled by the peasants; that peace and security may be had. it is better to mercilessly cut off one member rather than lose the entire body through fire or plague. furthermore, the insurgents are notoriously faithless, perjured, disobedient, riotous thieves, robbers, murderers, and blasphemers, so that there is not one of them but has well deserved death ten times over without mercy. if my advice had been followed in the very beginning, and a few lives had been taken, before the insurrection assumed such large proportions, thousands of lives would have been saved. the experience should make all parties involved wise." -"if it be said," he continues, "that i myself teach lawlessness, when i urge all who can to cut down the rioters, my booklet was not written against common evil-doers, but against seditious rioters. there is a marked distinction between such a one and a murderer or robber and other ordinary criminals; for a murderer or similar criminal lets the head and civil authority itself stand, and attacks merely its members or its property. he, indeed, fears the government. now, while the head remains, no individual should attack the murderer, because the head [civil authority] call punish him, but should wait for the judgment and sentence of that authority to which god has given the sword and office. but the rioter attacks the head itself, so that his offense bears no comparison with that of the murderer." (p. .) under the restriction under which this book was written as regards space, we cannot enter as we would like to upon an exhaustive discussion of luther's political views. luther was in this respect the most enlightened european citizen of his age. he has voiced sound principles on the rights of the state and its limitations and the objects for which the state exists and does not exist, on the separation of church and state, on the removal of bad rulers from authority, and especially on liberty. the power of the state he values because it secures to each individual citizen the highest degree of liberty possible in this life. those who represent luther as a defender of anarchy or tyranny either do not know what they are talking about, or they do it for a purpose, and deserve the contempt of all intelligent men. . luther the destroyer of liberty of conscience. catholics claim that luther's work, though ostensibly undertaken in behalf of religious liberty, necessarily had to result in the very opposite of freedom. they point to the fact that in most countries which accepted the protestant faith the church became subservient to the state. these state churches of europe, however, which in the view of catholics are the product of luther's reform movement, are to be regarded as only one symptom of the intolerance which characterizes the entire activity of luther. he had indeed adopted the principle of "private interpretation" of the scriptures, however, only for himself. he was unwilling to accord to others the right which he claimed for himself. all who dissented from his teaching were promptly attacked by him, and that, in violent and scurrilous language. the protestant party in the course of time became a warring camp of ishmaelites, luther fighting everybody and everybody fighting luther. religious intolerance and persecution became the prevailing policy of protestants in their dealings with other protestants. the burning of servetus at geneva by calvin was the logical outcome of luther's teaching. the maxim, _cuius regio, eius religio,_ that is, the prince, or government, in whose territory i reside determines my religion, became a protestant tenet. america got its first taste of religious liberty, not from the original protestant settlers, but from the catholic colonists whom lord baltimore brought to maryland, etc., etc. the view here propounded is in plain contravention of what the world has hitherto believed, and to a very large extent still believes, regarding luther's attitude toward the right of the individual to choose his own religion and to determine for himself matters of faith. the position which luther occupies in his final answer before the emperor at worms is generally believed to state luther's position on the question of religious liberty in a nutshell. "unless convinced by the word of god or by cogent reason" that he was wrong, he declared at the diet of worms, he could not and would not retract what he had written. the individual conscience, he maintained, cannot be bound. each man must determine the meaning of the word for himself. and the inevitable result of this principle is individual liberty. this principle luther maintained to the end of his life. his appeal to the magistrates to suppress the peasants' revolt was not a call to suppress the false teachings of the peasants, but their disorderly conduct. against their spiritual aberrations luther proposed to wage war with his written and oral testimony. "the peace and order of the state must be maintained against disorder, personal violence, destruction of property, public immorality, and treason, though they come in the guise of religion. the state must grant liberty of conscience, freedom of speech, and the privilege of the press. these are inalienable rights belonging alike to every individual, subject only to the limitation that they are not permitted to encroach upon the rights of others. the natural, the almost inevitable, consequence of the declaration and recognition of these principles was eventually the establishment of modern constitutional law. it was not in consequence of his teaching, but merely in spite of it, that for the next two centuries (in certain instances) monarchical government became more autocratic, as feudalism was being transformed into civil government. . . . all through luther's writings, and in his own acts as well, is to be read the right of the individual to think and believe in matters political, religious, and otherwise as he sees proper. his is the right to read the bible, and any other book he may desire. he has the right to confer and counsel, with others, to express and declare his views _pro_ and _con,_ in speech and print, so long as he abides by, and remains within, the laws of the land. luther firmly believed in the liberty of the individual as to conscience, speech, and press. the search for truth must be untrammeled." (waring, _political theories of luther,_ p. f.) this testimony of one who has made a careful investigation of luther's writings on the subject of liberty of conscience is, of course, not first-hand evidence; it merely shows what impressions people take away from their study of luther. let us hear luther himself. in the _appeal to the german nobility_ he says: "no one can deny that it is breaking god's commandments to violate faith and a safe-conduct, even though it be promised to the devil himself, much more then in the case of a heretic. . . . even though john hus were a heretic, however bad he may have been, yet he was burned unjustly and in violation of god's commandments, and we must not force the bohemians to approve this, if we wish ever to be at one with them. plain truth must unite us, not obstinacy. it is no use to say, as they said at the time, that a safe-conduct need not be kept if promised to a heretic; that is as much as to say, one may break god's commandments in order to keep god's commandments. they were infatuated and blinded by the devil, that they could not see what they said or did. god has commanded us to observe a safe-conduct; and this we must do though the world should perish; much more, then, where it is only a question of a heretic being set free. we should overcome heretics with books, not with fire, as the old fathers did. if there were any skill in overcoming heretics with fire, the executioner would be the most learned doctor in the world; and there would be no need of study, but he that could get another into his power could burn him." ( , .) in his treatise _on the limits of secular authority,_ luther says: "unbearable loss follows where the secular authority is given too much room, and it is likewise not without loss where it is too restricted. here it punishes too little; there it punishes too much. although it is more desirable that it offend on the side of punishing too little than that it punish too severely; because it is always better to permit a knave to live than to put a good man to death, inasmuch as the world still has and must have knaves, but has few good men. "in the first place, it is to be noted that the two classes of the human race, one of whom is in the kingdom of god under christ, and the other in the kingdom of the world under civil authority, have two kinds of laws; for every kingdom must have its laws and its rights, and no kingdom or _regime_ can stand without law, as daily experience shows. temporal government has laws that do not reach farther than over person and property, and what is external on the earth; for god will not permit any one to rule over the soul of man but himself. therefore, where temporal power presumes to give laws to the soul, it touches god's rule, and misleads and destroys the souls. we wish to make that so clear that men may comprehend it, in order that our knights, the princes and bishops, may see what fools they are when seeking to force people by their laws and commandments to believe thus or so. when a man lays a human law or commandment upon the soul, that it must believe this or that, as the man prescribes, it is assuredly not god's word. . . . therefore it is a thoroughly foolish thing to command a man to believe the church, the fathers, the councils, although there is nothing on it from god's word. "now tell me, how much sense does the head have that lays down a command on a matter where it has no authority? who would not hold as of unsound mind the person who would command the moon to shine when it wishes? how fitting would it be if the leipzig authorities would lay down laws for us at wittenberg, or we at wittenberg for the people of leipzig? moreover, let men thereby understand that every authority should and may concern itself only where it can see, know, judge, sentence, transform, and change; for what kind of judge is he to me who would blindly judge matters he neither hears nor sees? now tell me, how can a man see, know, judge, sentence, and change the heart? for that is reserved to god alone. a court should and must be certain when it sentences, and have everything in clear light. but the soul's thoughts and impulses can be known to no one but god. therefore it is futile and impossible to command or compel a man by force to believe thus or so. for that purpose another grip is necessary. force does not accomplish it. for my ungracious lords, pope and bishops, should be bishops and preach god's word; but they leave that and have become temporal princes and rule with laws that concern only person and property. they have reversed the order of things. instead of ruling souls (internally) through god's word, they rule (externally) castles, cities, lands, and people, and kill souls with indescribable murder. the temporal lords should, in like manner, rule (externally) land and people; but they leave that. they can do nothing more than flay and shave the people, set one tax and one rent on another; there let loose a bear and here a wolf; respect no right, or faith, or truth, and conduct affairs so that robbers and knaves increase in number; and their temporal _regime_ lies as far beneath as the _regime_ of the spiritual tyrants. faith is a matter concerning which each one is responsible for himself; for as little as one man can go to heaven or hell for me, so little can he believe or not believe for me; and as little as he can open or close heaven or hell for me, so little can he drive me to belief or unbelief. we have the saying from st. augustine: 'no one can or should be compelled to believe.' the blind and miserable people do not see what a vain and impossible thing they undertake; for, however imperiously they command, and however hard they drive, they cannot force people any farther than they follow with their mouth and the hand. they cannot compel the heart, though they should break it. for true is the maxim: _gedanken sind zollfrei_. (no toll is levied on thought.) when weak consciences are driven by force to lie, deceive, and say otherwise than they believe in the heart, they burden themselves also with a heavy sin; for all the lies and false witness given by such weak consciences rest upon him who forces them. "christ himself clearly recognized and concisely stated this truth when he said: 'render therefore unto caesar the things which are caesar's, and unto god the things that are god's' (matt. , ). now, when imperial authority stretches itself over into god's kingdom and authority and does not keep within its own separate jurisdiction, this discrimination between the two realms has not been made. for the soul is not under authority of the emperor. he can neither teach nor guide it, neither kill it nor give it life, neither bind nor loose, neither judge nor sentence, neither hold nor let alone; which necessarily would exist had he authority so to do, for they are under his jurisdiction and power. "david long ago expressed it briefly: 'the heaven, even the heavens, are the lord's; but the earth hath he given to the children of men' (ps. , ). that is to say, over what is on the earth and belongs to the temporal earthly kingdom, man has power from god; but what belongs to heaven and to the eternal kingdom is under the lord of heaven alone. but finally, this is the meaning of peter: 'we ought to obey god rather than men' (acts , ). he here clearly marks a limit to temporal authority; for were men obliged to observe everything that civil authority wished, the command, 'we ought to obey god rather than men,' would have been given in vain. "if, now, your princes or temporal lord command you to believe this or that, or to dispense with certain books, say: 'i am under obligations to obey you with body and estate; command me within the compass of your authority on earth, and i will obey you. put if you command me as to belief, and order me to put away books, i will not obey, for then you become a tyrant and overreach yourself, and command where you have neither right nor power.' if your goods are taken and your disobedience is punished, you are blessed, and you may thank god that you are worthy to suffer for god's word. when a prince is in the wrong, his subjects are not under obligations to follow him, for no one is obliged to do anything against the right; but we must obey god, who desires to have the right rather than men. "but thou sayest once more: 'yea, worldly power cannot compel to belief. it is only external protection against the people being misled by false doctrine. how else can heretics be kept it bay?' answer: that is the business of bishops, to whom the office is entrusted, and not to princes. for heresy can never be kept off by force; another grip is wanted for that. this is another quarrel and conflict than that of the sword. god's word must contend here. if that avail nothing, temporal power will never settle the matter, though it fill the world with blood. heresy pertains to the spiritual world. you cannot cut it with iron, nor burn it with fire, nor drown it in water. you cannot drive the devil out of the heart by destroying, with sword or fire, the vessel in which he lives. this is like fighting a blade of straw." ( , ff.) referring to the anabaptists, luther wrote in : "it is not right, and i think it a great pity, that such wretched people should be so miserably slain, burned, cruelly put to death; every one should be allowed to believe what he will. if he believe wrongly, he will have punishment enough in the eternal fire of hell. why should he be tortured in this life, too; provided always that it be a case of mistaken belief only, and that they are not also unruly and oppose themselves to the temporal power?" ( , .) to his friend cresser he wrote: "if the courts wish to govern the churches in their own interests, god will withdraw his benediction from them, and things will become worse than before. satan still is satan. under the popes he made the church meddle in politics; in our time he wishes to make politics meddle with the church." ( b, . translations by waring.) but why did not these excellent principles attain better results in luther's own time? on this question we have no better answer than that given by bryce: "the remark must not be omitted in passing how much less than might have been expected the religious movement did at first actually effect in the way of promoting either political progress or freedom of conscience. the habits of centuries were not to be unlearned in a few years, and it was natural that ideas struggling into existence and activity should work erringly and imperfectly for a time." (_holy roman empire_, p. .) this would be luther's own answer. his work was among people who were just emerging from the ignorance and spiritual bondage in which they had been reared in the catholic church. they had to be gradually and with much patience taught, not only in regard to their rights and privileges, but also in regard to their proper and most efficient application. but it is not in agreement with the facts when the charge is directed against luther that he employed the authority of the state for furthering the ends of the church because he urged the saxon elector to arrange for a visitation of the demoralized churches in the country, and to order such improvements to be made as would be found necessary (erlangen ed. , ); also when he sought the elector's aid for the reform party at naumburg at the election of a new bishop ( , ). in both instances he speaks of the elector as a "notbischof," that is, an emergency bishop. but his remarks must be carefully studied to get his exact meaning. for he declares that the elector as a magistrate is under no obligation to attend to these matters. they are not state business. but he is asked as a christian to place himself at the head of a laudable and necessary movement, and to place his influence and ability at the disposition of the master, just as a christian laborer, craftsman, merchant, musician, painter, poet, author, consecrate their abilities to the lord. this means that the "emergency bishop" has not the right to issue commands in the church, but he has the privilege and duty to serve. the people needed a leader, and who was better qualified for that than their trusted prince? besides, the churches had to be protected in their secular and civil interests in those days. the young protestant faith would have been mercilessly extirpated by rome, which was gathering the secular powers around her to fight her battles with material weapons against protestants. the protestant princes would have betrayed a trust which citizens rightly repose in their government, if they had not taken steps to afford the protestant churches in their domains every legal protection. the protection of citizens in the exercise of their religious liberty is within the sphere of the civil magistrates. the citizens can appeal to the government for such protection, and when the government in the interest of religious liberty represses elements that are hostile, it is not intolerant, but just. if a religion, like that of the bomb-throwing anarchists and the vice-breeding mormons, is forbidden to practise its faith in the land, that is not intolerance, but common equity. one of the most pathetic spectacles which the student of medieval history has to contemplate is the treatment of the jews at the hands of the christians. "few were the monarchs of christendom," says prof. worman, "who rose above the barbarism of the middle ages. by considerable pecuniary sacrifices only could the sons of israel enjoy tolerance. in italy their lot had always been most severe. now and then a roman pontiff would afford them his protection, but, as a rule, they have received only intolerance in that country. down even to the time of the deposition of pius ix from the temporal power ( ) it has been the barbarous custom, on the last saturday before the carnival, to compel the jews to proceed _en masse_ to the capitol, and ask permission of the pontiff to reside in the city another year. at the foot of the hill the petition was refused them, but, after much entreaty, they were granted the favor when they had reached the summit, and as their residence the ghetto was assigned them." in france a prelate condemned the jews because the "country people looked upon them as the only people of god," whereupon "all joined in a carnival of persecution, and the history of the jews became nothing else than a successive series of massacres." in spain the jews were treated more kindly by the moors than by the catholics. at first their services were valued in the crafts and trades, "but the extravagance and consequent poverty of the nobles, as well as the increasing power of the priesthood, ultimately brought about a disastrous change. the estates of the nobles and, it is also believed, those attached to the cathedrals and churches, were in many cases mortgaged to the jews; hence it was not difficult for 'conscience' to get up a persecution when goaded to its 'duty' by the pressure of want and shame. gradually the jews were deprived of the privilege of living where they pleased; their rights were diminished and their taxes augmented." to their lowest stage of misery, however, the jews were reduced during one of the most holy enterprises which the papacy launched during the middle ages--the crusades. "the crusading movement was inaugurated by a wholesale massacre and persecution first of the jew, and afterwards of the mussulman. . . . shut out from all opportunity for the development of their better qualities, the jews were gradually reduced to a decline both in character and condition. from a learned, influential, and powerful class of the community, we find them, after the inauguration of the crusades, sinking into miserable outcasts; the common prey of clergy and nobles and burghers, and existing in a state worse than slavery itself. the christians deprived the jews even of the right of holding real estate; and confined them to the narrower channels of traffic. their ambition being thus fixed upon one subject, they soon mastered all the degrading arts of accumulating gain; and prohibited from investing their gain in the purchase of land, they found n more profitable employment of it in lending it at usurious interest to the thoughtless and extravagant." in course of time the borrowers recouped their losses by inaugurating raids upon the jews. jew-baiting, persecutions, expatriations of jewish settlers, were of frequent occurrence. towards the end of the thirteenth century , jews were expelled from england and their property confiscated. in germany "they had to pay all manner of iniquitous taxes--body tax, capitation tax, trade taxes, coronation tax, and to present a multitude of gifts, to mollify the avarice or supply the necessities of emperor, princes, and barons. it did not suffice, however, to save them from the loss of their property. the populace and the lower clergy also must be, satisfied; they, too, had passions to gratify. a wholesale slaughter of the 'enemies of christianity' was inaugurated. treves, metz, cologne, mentz, worms, spires, strassburg, and other cities were deluged with the blood of the 'unbelievers.' the word _hep_ (said to be the initials of _hierosolyma est perdita_, jerusalem is taken) throughout all the cities of the empire became the signal for massacres, and if an insensate monk sounded it along the streets, it threw the rabble into paroxysms of murderous rage. the choice of death or conversion was given to the jews; but few were found willing to purchase their life by that form of perjury. rather than subject their offspring to conversion and such christian training, fathers presented their breast to the sword after putting their children to death, and wives and virgins sought refuge from the brutality of the soldiers by throwing themselves into the river with stones fastened to their bodies." (_mcclintock and strong cyclop_., , f.) all this happened under the most christian rule of the popes. the characteristic temper of the jew in the middle ages, his fierce hatred of christianity, his sullen mood, his blasphemous treatment of matters and objects sacred to christians, are the result of the treatment he received even from the members and high officials of the church. now here comes rome in our day asserting the kindness and generosity shown the jews by their popes, because these afforded them shelter in the ghetto of the holy city! how differently, they say, was this from the treatment accorded the jews by luther. why, these catholic writers do not tell the hundredth part of the truth about the attitude of their church to the jews in the middle ages. let this be remembered when luther's remarks about the jews are taken up for study. he is very outspoken against them; his utterances, however, relate for the most part to the false teaching and religious practises, to their perversion of the text and the meaning of the scriptures, and to the blasphemies which they utter against god, jesus christ, and his church, and to the lies which they assiduously spread about the christian religion. in all that luther says against the jews under this head he is simply discharging the functions of a teacher of christianity; for scripture says that it was given also "for reproof" ( tim. , ). no one can be a true theologian without being polemical on occasion. in another class of his references to the jews luther refers to their character: their arrogance and pride, their stiffneckedness and contumacy, their greed and avarice, which makes their presence in any land a public calamity. though their church and state has long been overthrown, and they are a people without a country, homeless wanderers on the face of the earth, they still boast of being "the people of god," and are indulging the wildest dreams about the reestablishment of their ancient kingdom. they are looking for a messiah who will be a secular prince, and will make them all barons living in beautiful castles and receiving the tribute of the goyim. one may reason and plead with them and show them that their belief contradicts their own scriptures, that their talmud is filled with palpable falsehoods, and that their hope is a chimera; but they turn a deaf ear to argument and entreaty, and turn upon you with fierce resentment at your efforts to show them the truth. although they know that their habits of grasping and hoarding wealth, driving hard and unfair bargains, their hunting for small profits by contemptible methods like hungry dogs searching the offal in the alley, rouses the enmity of communities against them and causes them to become a blight to all true progress, to honest trade and business in any land where they have become firmly established, so that laws must be made against them, still they blindly and passionately continue their covetous strivings. when luther observes the corrupting influence of the jews on the public life and morals, he declares that they ought to be expelled from the country, and their synagogs ought to be destroyed, that is, they have deserved this treatment. but it is a remarkable fact that even in these terrible denunciations of the jews luther moves on bible ground, as any one can see that will examine his exposition of an imprecatory psalm, like psalm and . if these words of god mean anything and admit of any application to an apostate and hardened race, the jews are that race, and a teacher of the bible has the duty to point out this fact. but luther has not been a jewbaiter; he has not incited a riot against then, nor headed a raid upon them, as prof. worman tells us that catholic priests in the middle ages occasionally would do. what luther thought of persecuting the jews for their religion can be seen from his exposition of psalm . he did not believe in a general conversion of the jews, but he held that individual jews would ever and anon be won for christ and would be grafted on the olive-tree of the true church. "therefore," he says, "we ought to condemn the rage of some christians--if they really deserve to be called christians--who think that they are doing god a service by persecuting the jews in the most hateful manner, imagining all manner of evil about them, proudly and haughtily mocking them in their pitiful misery. according to the statement in this psalm (ps. , ) and the example of the apostle paul in rom. , , we ought rather to feel a profound and cordial pity for them and always pray for them. . . . by their tyrannical bearing these wicked people, who are nominally christians, cause not a little injury, not only to the cause of christianity, but also to christian people, and they are responsible for, and sharers in, the impiety of the jews, because by their cruel bearing toward them they drive them away from the christian faith instead of attracting them with all possible gentleness, patience, pleading, and anxious concern for them. there are even some theologians so unreasonable as to sanction such cruelty to the jews and to encourage people to it; in their proud conceit they assert that the jews are the christians' slaves and tributary to the emperor, while in truth they are themselves christians with as much right as any one nowadays is roman emperor. good god, who would want to join our religion, even though he were of a meek and submissive mind, when he sees how spitefully and cruelly he is treated; and that the treatment he can expect is not only unchristian, but worse than bestial? if hating jews and heretics and turks makes people christians, we insane people would indeed be the best christians. but if loving christ makes christians, we are beyond a doubt worse than jews, heretics, and turks, because no one loves christ less than we. the rage of these people reminds me of children and fools, who, when they see a picture of a jew on a wall, go and cut out his eyes, pretending that they want to help the lord christ. most of the preachers during lent treat of nothing else than the cruelty of the jews towards the lord christ, which they are continually magnifying. thus they embitter believers against them, while the gospel aims only at showing and exalting the love of god and christ." ( , .) the catholic claim that the maryland colony in the days of the calverts became the first home of true religious liberty on american soil has been so often blasted by historians that one is loath to enter upon this moth-eaten claim for fear of merely repeating what others have more exhaustively stated. catholics seem to forget what bishop perry has called attention to: "the maryland charter of toleration was the gift of an english monarch, the nominal head of church of england, and the credit of any merit in this donative is due the giver, and not the recipient, of the kingly grant." prof. fisher has called attention to another fact: "only two references to religion are to be found in the maryland charter. the first gives to the proprietary patronage and advowson of churches. the second empowers him to erect churches, chapels, and oratories, which he may cause to be consecrated according to the ecclesiastical laws of england. the phraseology is copied from the avalon patent (drawn up in england in for a portion of the colony of newfoundland) that was given to sir george calvert (first lord baltimore) when he was a member of the church of england. yet the terms were such that recognition of that church as the established form of religion does not prevent the proprietary and the colony from the exercise of full toleration toward other christian bodies." (_colonial era_, p. .) the maryland colony was admittedly organized as a business venture, and its original members were largely protestants. it was to secure the financial interests of the proprietary that tolerance was shown the colonists. prof. fisher says: "any attempt to proscribe protestants would have proved speedily fatal to the existence of the colony. in a document which emanated partly from baltimore himself, it is declared to be evident that the distinctive privileges 'usually granted to ecclesiastics of the roman catholic church by catholic princes in their own countries could not be possibly granted hero (in maryland) without great offense to the king and state of england.'" (p. .) we have not the space in this review of catholic charges and claims to go into the religious history of the maryland colony as we should like to do; otherwise we should explain the machinations of the jesuits in this colony, and prove that what tolerance maryland in its early days enjoyed it owed to the preponderating influence of non-catholic forces. it requires an unusual amount of courage for a catholic writer at this late day to parade his church as the mother and protectress of religious liberty and tolerance. any person who has but a smattering knowledge of the history of the world during the last four centuries will smile at this claim. the old rome of the days of the inquisition and the _auto da fes_ may seem tolerant in our days, but she is so from sheer necessity, not from any voluntary and joyous choice of her own. her intolerant principles remain the same, only she has not the power to carry them into effect. one of the catholic bishops who was opposed to the dogma of papal infallibility, reinkens, published a book bearing the remarkable title _revolution and church_. in this book a thought is suggested which connects the roman curia with political disturbances that occur in the world. the author regards the declaration of papal infallibility as another step forward in the imperialistic program of the curia looking towards world-dominion. he argues that it is in the interest of the vatican policies to foment trouble and breed revolutions in the commonwealths of the world. "the thoughts of the roman curia," he says, "are not the thoughts of god. inasmuch, however, as it is these latter that are realized with increasing force in the history of the world, and that animate the formation of every true civil and ecclesiastical institution, the curia is gradually forced into a conflict with the whole world. . . . the curia (to carry its aims into effect) tries one last means: its last attempt is to bring about a revolution. as 'the church' succeeded in digging her charter out of the ruins of the commonwealths of the ancient world, so the spirits of vaticanism hope again to rebuild the palace of their dominion out of ruins." (p. .) again: "bishop hefele entertains the fear that the recent elevation of the pope to power (the infallibility dogma) will soon become the primary dogma in the instruction of children. we regret to say that this fear has proven well founded: all the governments, even the german, aid in this instruction of the schoolchildren, because they retain religious instruction on a confessional basis [we in america say on "sectarian" lines], hence also that prescribed by the vatican, as obligatory, and the infallibilist clergy is salaried by the state for providing this instruction the divine authority of the pope extending over all men tends to disturb the minds of the children in the schools: they are taught at an early age to obey the viceregent of god in preference to obeying the emperor and the state. in the higher schools this is done by the clergy that is commissioned to teach in such schools." (p. .) again: "the roman order of the jesuits is not only spread like a net over all countries, but it sinks its roots into every age, sex, estate, and loosens and forces apart the ligaments of civil institutions." (p. .) luther's views on human free will are brought forward once more to show that his teaching necessarily is hostile to liberty. luther's famous reply to erasmus _on the bondage of the will_ is made to do yeoman's service in this respect. what luther has declared regarding the sovereignty of god's rulership over men, regarding the relation of god also to the evil existing in this world, regarding the absence of chance in the affairs of men, regarding man's utter helplessness over and against the supreme will of god, is cited to prove that luther's teaching leads, not to liberty, but either to recklessness or despair. luther's views on "the captive, or enslaved, will" are declared to be the most degrading and demoralizing teaching that men have been offered during the last centuries. luther's famous illustration, _viz_., that man is like a horse which either god or the devil rides, has prompted the following remarks of one of luther's most recent critics: "this parable summarizes the whole of luther's teaching on the vital and all-important subject of man's free will. . . . all who are honest and fearless of consequences must admit in frankest terms that luther's teaching on free will, as expounded in his book, and explicitly making god the author of man's evil thoughts and deeds, cannot but lend a mighty force to the passions and justify the grossest violations of the moral law. indeed, the enemy of souls, as anderson remarks, 'could not inspire a doctrine more likely to effect his wicked designs than luther's teaching oil the enslavement of the human will.'" there is a dogmatic reason for this excoriation of luther: rome's teaching of righteousness by works and human merit. the same author says, in immediate connection with the foregoing: "likening man to a 'beast of burden,' does luther not maintain that man is utterly powerless 'by reason of his fallen nature' to lead a godly life, and merit by the practise of virtue the rewards of eternal happiness? does he not say: 'it is written in the hearts of men that there is no freedom of will,' that 'all takes place in accordance with inexorable necessity,' and that, even 'were free will offered him, he should not care to have it'? but does not all this contradict the spirit of god when, speaking in the book of ecclesiasticus, he says: 'before man is life and death, good and evil; that which he shall choose shall be given him'?" we submitted in chap. the scriptural evidence on the spiritual disability of man. (the passage from ecclesiasticus in the last quotation is not scripture.) it is useless to argue with a person who refuses to accept this teaching of scripture. we can only repeat what we said before: let the advocates of human free will proceed to do what they claim they are able to do, and do it thoroughly. no one will begrudge them the crown of glory when they obtain it. on the other hand, they will have none but themselves to blame if they do not obtain it. in the light of god's holy word, in the light, moreover, of the experience of the most spiritual-minded and saintly men that have lived on earth, we see in the claim of the advocates of human free will regarding the fulfilment of god's law nothing but a vain boast, and a most mischievous attempt to be smarter than god. the theory of salvation by merit is the most disastrous risk that the human heart can take. christ has mercifully warned men not to take this risk. if they will not hear him, they will have to perish in their sins (john , ). in chap. we also explained luther's views on human free will in the affairs of this life. we only have to add a word on the subject of contingency. are luther's catholic, critics really so blind as not to see that man even in his ordinary affairs of common every-day life is subject to the inscrutable government of god? our physical life in its most trivial aspects is entirely dependent not only on the laws of nature, which are nothing but the order which the creator has appointed for the created universe, but also on extraordinary acts of god over which no man has control. the farmer sows his wheat and expects to reap a crop. how? by reason of the power of germination which the creator has put in the grain, and the laws which govern atmospheric changes, which laws, again, the creator governs. the farmer can do nothing to make the wheat grow and ripen. he is utterly dependent upon god.--a merchant decides that he will make a business trip to new york. he will leave the next morning on the nine o'clock train. he orders his transportation, and the next morning-he does not leave. "something happened; i had to change my plans," he tells his friends. ah, says our catholic critic, but was he not free to change his mind? we say: you may talk as much as you wish about the person's freedom; the fact remains that the person would not have changed his mind unless he had to. - let us follow this merchant a little further: he actually starts on his trip two days later. he is to arrive at his destination at two o'clock in the afternoon of the next day, and very much depends on his arriving just at that time. but he does not even get to cincinnati. "something happened," he wires to his friend. and now his human free will goes into operation again: he changes his mind. - "man proposes, but god disposes," this belief is ineradicably written into the consciousness of all intelligent men, even of intelligent pagans, and no philosophy of free will will wipe it out. the wise farmer, after he has finished sowing his field, says, "god willing, i shall reap a good crop." the wise merchant says, "god willing, i shall be in new york to-morrow." and god approves of this wise reservation which causes the prudent to submit their most ordinary actions to divine revision. he says in jas. , - : "go to now, ye that say, to-day or to-morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain, whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. for what is your life? it is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. for that ye ought to say, if the lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. but now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil." let luther's catholic critics wrestle with these and similar texts of scripture, with these and similar facts of daily life. luther has rightly declared the sovereignty of god a mighty ax and thunderbolt that shatters the assertion of human free will. we have shown that luther is no fatalist. his warning, on the one hand, not to disregard the secret will of god, and on the other, not to seek to find it out, is a masterpiece of wisdom. in view of the absolute sovereignty of god and man's absolute dependence upon it, luther urges man to go to work in his chosen occupation in childlike reliance upon god. he is to employ to the utmost capacity all his god-given energies of mind and body and work as if everything depended on his industry, strength, prudence, thrift, planning, and arranging. having done all, he is to say: dear lord, it is all subject to thy approval. thou art master; do thou boss my business. if thou overrulest my plans, i have nothing to say; thou knowest better. not my will, but thine, be done. this is the whole truth in a nutshell that luther drives home in that part of his reply to erasmus which treats of contingency. if ever statements garbled from the context are unfair to the author, what the catholics are constantly doing in quoting luther on the bondage of the will is one of the most glaring exhibitions of unfairness on record. this treatise of luther deserves to be studied thoroughly and repeatedly, and measured against the facts of the common experience of all men. for a profitable study of this treatise there is, moreover, required a very humble mind, a mind that knows its sin, and is sincere in acknowledging its insufficiency. the generation of luther and the generations after him have had this particular teaching of luther before them four hundred years. what effect has it had on human progress in every field of secular activity in protestant lands? has it created that chaos and confusion which catholics claim it must inevitably lead to? quite the contrary has happened. and now let the patrons of the theory of human free will measure their own success as recorded by history against that of protestants. . "the adam and eve of the new gospel of concubinage." this is the honorary title which catholics bestow upon martin luther and catherine von bora, who were married june , , during the peasants' war. luther was forty-two years old at the time and his bride past twenty-six. she had left the cloister two years before her marriage, and had found employment during that time in the home of one of the citizens of wittenberg. their first child, hans, was born june , . the grounds on which catholics object to this marriage are, chiefly, three. in the first place, they declare the marriage the outcome of an impure relation which had existed between luther and catherine prior to their marriage. the marriage had virtually become a matter of necessity, to prevent greater scandal. moreover, in this impure relationship luther with his lascivious and lustful mind, in which fleshly desires were continually raging, had been the prime mover. the second ground on which catholics object to luther's marriage is, because luther held professedly low views of the virtue of chastity and the state of matrimony. he had stripped matrimony of its sacramental character, and regarded it as a mere physical necessity and a social and civil contract. thirdly, catholics criticize luther's marriage because it was entered into by both the contracting parties in violation of a sacred vow: luther had been a monk and catherine a nun, both sworn to perpetual celibacy. moral cleanness is indelibly stamped upon hundreds of pages of luther's writings. the sixth commandment in its wider application to the mutual relation of the sexes and the sexual condition of the individual was to luther the solemn voice of god by which the holy and wise creator guards and protects the fountains whence springs human life. "because there is among us," he says, "such a shameful mixture and the very dregs of all kinds of vice and lewdness, this commandment is also directed against all manner of impurity, whatever it may be called; and not only is the external act forbidden, but every kind of cause, incitement, and means, so that the heart, the lips, and the whole body may be chaste and afford no opportunity, help, or persuasion for impurity. and not only this, but that we may also defend, protect, and rescue wherever there is danger and need; and give help and counsel, so as to maintain our neighbor's honor. for wherever you allow such a thing when you could prevent it, or connive at it as if it did not concern you, you are as truly guilty as the one perpetrating the deed. thus it is required, in short, that every one both live chastely himself and help his neighbor do the same." (_large catechism_, p. .) the reason why god in the sixth commandment refers to only one form of sexual impurity luther states correctly thus: "he expressly mentions adultery, because among the jews it was a command and appointment that every one must be married. therefore also the young were early married, so that the state of celibacy was held in small esteem, neither were public prostitution and lewdness tolerated as now. therefore adultery was the most common form of unchastity among them." (_ibid_.) in his _appeal to the german nobility_ luther says: "is it not a terrible thing that we christians should maintain public brothels, though we all vow chastity in our baptism? i well know all that can be said on this matter; that it is not peculiar to one nation, that it would be difficult to demolish it, and that it is better thus than that virgins, or married women, or honorable women should be dishonored. but should not the spiritual and temporal powers combine to find some means of meeting these difficulties without any such heathen practise? if the people of israel existed without this scandal, why should not a christian nation be able do so? how do so many towns and villages manage to exist without these houses? why should not great cities be able to do so? . . . it is the duty of those in authority to see the good of their subjects. but if those in authority considered how young people might be brought together in marriage, the prospect of marriage would help every man and protect him from temptations." ( , ; transl. by waring.) this is the luther of whom catholic writers say that he would not be considered qualified to sit with a modern vice commission. but what about the many coarse references in luther's writings to sexual matters-references which are unprintable nowadays? do these not show that luther was far from being even an ordinary gentleman, that he was depraved in thought and vulgar nauseating, in speech whenever he approached the subject of marriage and sexual conditions? we have just cited a few of luther's references to these matters. they are clean and proper. we could fill pages with them, and they would prove most profitable reading in our loose, profligate, and adulterous age. those other references which are also found in luther's writings should be studied in their connection. leaving out of the account humorous references and playful remarks, which only malice can twist into a lascivious meaning, they are indignant and scornful expostulations with the defenders and practisers of vice that flaunted its shame in the face of the public. righteous anger will give a person the courage to speak out boldly and in no mincing words about things which otherwise nauseate him. when catholic writers cull from luther vile and disgusting remarks about sexual affairs, it should be investigated to whom luther made those remarks, and what reason he had for making them. there is another side to this matter, and that concerns medieval catholicism itself. we have indicated in sundry places in this review the social conditions in respect of the sex relations that existed under the spiritual sovereignty of the roman church in luther's day in the very city of rome, and had grown up and were being fostered by her leading men. luther's references to lustfulness are paraded as evidence of the lust that was consuming him; they are, in reality, evidences of the lust that he knew to be raging in very prominent people with whom he had dealings. luther's words and teaching would count for little if his personal conduct and his acts were in open contradiction to his chaste professions. we would simply have to set him down as a hypocrite. but so would the people in luther's own day have done. it is a poor argument to say that the common people were no match for luther in an argument. they were cowed into silence, they were afraid to tell him to his face that he ought to practise what he preached. luther's work proved the spiritual emancipation of the common people, and one of the effects which mark his reformatory work is the intelligent layman, who forms his own judgment on what he hears and sees, and speaks out to his superiors. the wittenbergers in luther's day were not a set of ninnies; the constant association with the professors and students of the university, the growing fame of their town, which brought many strangers to it, important civil and religious affairs on which they had to come to a decision, had made many of them far-sighted and resolute men of affairs. luther's home life before and after his marriage was open to public inspection as few homes are. the most intimate and delicate affairs had to be arranged before company at times. in a small town-and wittenberg was no modern metropolis-what one person knows becomes public information in a short time. small communities have no secrets, or at least find it extremely difficult to have any. but the lewdness which luther attacked in his writings on chastity existed chiefly among persons of wealth and among the nobility. not a few of them resented luther's invectives against their mode of life. they surely did not lack the courage nor the ability to express themselves in retaliation against luther if they had known him to be immoral himself while preaching morality to others. last, not least, there were the catholic priests and dignitaries of the roman church whose scandalous life luther exposed. aside from their disagreement from luther in point of doctrine, personal revenge animated not a few of them with the desire to find a flaw in luther's conduct. a few reckless spirits among them insinuated and declared openly that luther was immoral, but the animus back of the charge was so well understood at the time, and the people who were in daily and close touch with luther were so fully convinced of the purity of his life, that the charges were treated with contempt. luther's life from the age of puberty to his marriage was, indeed, a fight against temptations to unchastity. is it anything else in the case of other men? the physical effects of adolescence, as we remarked before, are a natural and morally pure phenomenon; luther's frank way of speaking of them does not make them impure. but this physical condition in a growing young man or woman may become the occasion for impure acts. against these luther strove as every christian strives against them who has not the special grace of which our lord speaks matt. , , in the first part of the verse. luther had his flesh fairly well in subjection to the spirit. history has not recorded those acts of immorality which his enemies insinuate or openly charge him with. the illegitimate children which are imputed to him were born in catholic fancy. his constitutional amorous propensities, too, are fiction. though luther admits a few months prior to his marriage that he wears no armor plate around his heart, it is known that he had been all his life anything rather than a ladies' man. luther's courtship of catherine--if we may call it that--was almost void of romance. the nine nuns who had fled from the cloister at nimpschen to escape "the impurities of the life of celibacy," had turned to wittenberg in their trouble. they were not seeking new impurities, but running away from old ones. what was more natural than that they should seek the protection of the man whose teaching had opened the road to liberty for them. they did not come to wittenberg to surrender themselves to luther, but to seek his protection, advice, and help in beginning a new, natural life after the unnatural life which they had been leading. luther responded to the call of distress. he did not receive them into his own domicile in the cloister where he lived, but found shelter for them with kind citizens of the town. next, he found husbands for them. in less than two years after the escape from the cloister all had been respectably married, except catherine. a love-affair of hers with jerome baumgaertner of nuernberg had terminated unhappily, in spite of luther's urging the young man. another choice which luther proposed to her--dr. glatz of orlamuende--was declined peremptorily by catherine, because, it seems, she had read the man's character. in declining this second offer, catherine had made complaint to luther's friend amsdorf that luther was trying to marry her against her will. she appears to have been a frank and resolute woman; in her conversation with amsdorf she remarked that her decision would be altogether different if either he or even luther were to ask for her hand. this was not, as has been said, a bald invitation to either of these two gentlemen, but only catherine's energetic way of explaining what sort of a husband she would like, and why she would not take glatz. amsdorf so understood her remark and made nothing of it. by an accident he came to relate it to luther six months later, when the latter had written to him in great despondency, describing his lonely life and the disorderly state of his domicile which needed very much the care of a woman's hand. then it was that amsdorf related what catherine had remarked. luther had never thought of her in such a relation. he had been attracted, it seems, by another of the nine escaped nuns, ave von schoenfeld, but whatever affection he may have entertained for her must have been a passing incident, never seriously entertained, for it must be remembered that at that time luther declared that he would live and die a bachelor. besides, ave had now been happily married to another. at this juncture the influence of another woman enters into the private life of luther. argula von staufen, a noblewoman who had been won over to the cause of the reformation and was actively engaged in breaking down the power of the hierarchy even by her pen, wrote to luther, expressing her surprise that he who had written so ably and so well on the holy estate of matrimony was still single. among the peasants, too, the question was being debated whether luther would follow up his preaching with the logical action. luther was ruminating on these matters when the peasants' revolt broke out, and with them in his mind went to mansfeld. he soon reached the conclusion that he owed it to his profession as a preacher of the divine word, to his creator, to himself, and to the lonely catherine to marry. he foresaw that the celibate clergy of rome would raise a hue and cry about the act, but he considered it a noble work to offend these men, because they had by their law of celibacy offended the most holy god. he would marry to spite all of them, and the pope, and the devil. this resolution was promptly carried out, for luther was not in the habit of dallying long with serious matters. if he had asked his timid friend melanchthon, he would most likely have been advised against his marriage. faint-hearted philip was not the man to advise in a matter which at the time required a heroic faith. philip, therefore, was duly shocked when he heard about it. his consternation is now used by catholics to prove that he regarded luther's marriage as a wanton act prompted by lust. this is utterly unhistorical: philip was only afraid of the wild talk that would now be started against all of them. on the right and duty of the clergy to marry he believed with luther. and now a word about the chastity of rome, particularly that peculiar brand which was inaugurated by gregory vii for the roman clergy and the religious of both sexes, and riveted upon them by the council of trent- the chastity of the celibate state. that the unnatural principle had never worked out toward true chastity, that the robbery which it has perpetrated on men and women had to be compensated for by connivance at, and open permission of, concubinage, is a matter of current knowledge. luther's advice to priests and bishops who had opened their hearts to him on the state of their chastity to marry their cooks, even if they had to do it secretly; rather than maintain the other relation to them, was a good man's effort to meet a grave difficulty as best he could. this advice is now used to show that luther was ready to approve any kind of cohabitation. the very opposite is true: it was because he did not approve of any kind of sexual intercourse, but because he desired to obtain some kind of a legal character for that relation, that he gave the advice to which we have referred. before the assembled representatives of the church and of the german nation the following statements were read in article xxiii of the augsburg confession: "there has been common complaint concerning the examples of priests who were not chaste. for that reason, also, pope pius is reported to have said that there were certain reasons why marriage was taken away from priests, but that there were far weightier ones why it ought to be given back; for so platina writes. since, therefore, our priests were desirous to avoid these open scandals, they married wives, and taught that it was lawful for them to contract matrimony. first, because paul says ( cor. , ): 'to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife.' also ( ): 'it is better to marry than to burn.' secondly, christ says (matt. , ): 'all men cannot receive this saying,' where he teaches that not all men are fit to lead a single life; for god created man for procreation (gen. , ). nor is it in man's power, without a singular gift and work of god, to alter this creation. therefore, those that are not fit to lead a single life ought to contract matrimony. for no man's law, no vow, can annul the commandment and ordinance of god. for these reasons the priests teach that it is lawful for them to marry wives. it is also evident that in the ancient church priests were married men. for paul says ( tim. , ) that a bishop should be the husband of one wife. and in germany, four hundred years ago for the first time, the priests were violently compelled to lead a single life, who indeed offered such resistance that the archbishop of mayence, when about to publish the pope's decree concerning this matter, was almost killed in the tumult raised by the enraged priests. and so harsh was the dealing in the matter that not only were marriages forbidden for the time to come, but also existing marriages were torn asunder, contrary to all laws, divine and human, contrary even to the canons themselves, made not only by the popes, but by most celebrated councils. "seeing also that, as the world is aging, man's nature is gradually growing weaker, it is well to guard that no more vices steal into germany. furthermore, god ordained marriage to be a help against human infirmity. the old canons themselves say that the old rigor ought now and then, in the latter times, to be relaxed because of the weakness of men; which, it is to be devoutly wished, were also done in this matter. and it is to be expected that the churches shall at length lack pastors, if marriage should any longer be forbidden. "but while the commandment of god is in force, while the custom of the church is well known, while impure celibacy causes many scandals, adulteries, and other crimes deserving the punishments of just magistrates, yet it is a marvelous thing that in nothing is more cruelty exercised than against the marriage of priests. god has given commandment to honor marriage. by the laws of all well-ordered commonwealths, even among the heathen, marriage is most highly honored. but now men, and also priests, are cruelly put to death, contrary to the intent of the canons, for no other cause than marriage. paul (in tim. , ) calls that a doctrine of devils which forbids marriage. this may now be readily understood when the law against marriage is maintained by such penalties. "but as no law of man can annul the commandment of god, so neither can it be done by any vow. accordingly cyprian also advises that women who do not keep the chastity they have promised should marry. his words are, these (book i, epistle xix): 'but if they be unwilling or unable to persevere, it is better for them to marry than to fall into the fire by their lusts; at least, they should give no offense to their brethren and sisters.' and even the canons show some leniency toward those who have taken vows before the proper age, as heretofore has generally been the case." (p. f.) not a word of dissent arose in the august assembly while these facts and arguments were presented. the germans had not forgotten the riotous proceedings and the cruel heartaches that were caused by the enforcement of the decrees of the lenten synod of under the theocratic gregory vii, who wanted to set up a universal monarchy over the whole world and required an unmarried priesthood as his consecrated army. in his historical novel, _die letzten ihres geschlechts_, m. ruediger has graphically described the scenes enacted throughout germany when gregory's inhuman order was put into effect. similar statements regarding priestly celibacy are found in art. xxvii of the first, and in art. xxix of the second helvetic confession of the reformed. the episcopal church has declared itself to the same effect in art. xxxii of the thirty-nine articles. however, did not luther and catherine both perjure themselves by marrying? what about their religious vow, which had been given to god? also on this matter we might cite luther's numerous statements and expository writings, but we prefer to quote again the augsburg confession which grew out of luther's testimony for the truth. in article xxvii the lutheran confessors state: "what is taught on our part concerning monastic vows will be better understood if it be remembered what has been the state of the monasteries, and how many things were daily done in those very monasteries, contrary to the canons. in augustine's time they were free associations. afterward, when discipline was corrupted, vows were everywhere added for the purpose of restoring discipline, as in a carefully planned prison. gradually, many other observances were added besides vows. and these fetters were laid upon many before the lawful age, contrary to the canons. [catherine von bora had taken the veil at the age of sixteen.] many also entered into this kind of life through ignorance, being unable to their own strength, though they were of sufficient age. being thus ensnared, they were compelled to remain, even though some could have been freed by the provision of the canons. and this was more the case in convents of women than of monks, although more consideration should have been shown the weaker sex. this rigor displeased many good men before this time, who saw that young men and maidens were thrown into convents for a living, and what unfortunate results came of this procedure, and what scandals were created, what snares were cast upon consciences! they were grieved that the authority of the canons in so momentous a matter was utterly despised and set aside. "to these evils was added an opinion concerning vows, which, it is well known, in former times, displeased even those monks who were more thoughtful. they taught that vows were equal to baptism; they taught that, by this kind of life, they merited forgiveness of sins and justification before god. yea, they added that the monastic life not only merited righteousness before god, but even greater things, because it kept not only the precepts, but also the so-called 'evangelical counsels.' "thus they made men believe that the profession of monasticism was far better than baptism, and that the monastic life was mere meritorious than that of magistrates, than the life of pastors and such like, who serve their calling in accordance with god's commands, without any man-made services. none of these things can be denied; for they appear in their own books. . . . "these things we have rehearsed without odious exaggerations, to the end that the doctrine of our teachers, on this point, might be better understood. first, concerning such as contract matrimony." here the th article rehearses in the main the argument of article xxiii. "in the second place, why do our adversaries exaggerate the obligation or effect of a vow, when, at the same time, they have not a word to say of the nature of the vow itself, that it ought to be in a thing possible, free, and chosen spontaneously and deliberately? but it is not known to what extent perpetual chastity is in the power of man. and how few are they who have taken the vow spontaneously and deliberately! young men and maidens, before they are able to judge, are persuaded, and sometimes even compelled, to take the vow. wherefore it is not fair to insist so rigorously on the obligation, since it is granted by all that it is against the nature of a vow to take it without spontaneous and deliberate action. . . . "but although it appears that god's command concerning marriage delivers many from their vows, yet our teachers introduce also another argument concerning vows to show that they are void. for every service of god ordained and chosen of men without commandment of god to merit justification and grace is wicked as christ says (matt. , ): 'in vain they worship me with the commandments of men.' and paul teaches everywhere that righteousness is not to be sought by our own observances and acts of worship devised by men, but that it comes by faith to those who believe that they are received by god into grace for christ's sake." the confessors then proceed to show how spiritual pride was fostered by the monkish teaching of perfection, and how by their rites and ordinances and rules the true worship of god was obscured, and men were withdrawn from useful pursuits in life to be buried in cloisters. they conclude: "all these things, since they are false and empty, make vows null and void." (p. ff.) luther never had taken his own nor other monks' vows lightly. he spoke and wrote to melanchthon from the wartburg against the mere throwing off of the vows on the ground that they were not binding anyway. he argued the sacredness of the oath, and held that first the consciences of those bound by vows must be set free through the evangelical teaching; then, when they are qualified to make an intelligent choice on spiritual grounds, they may discard their vows. when he married catherine, he had long become a free man in his mind. so had catherine. luther is charged with having entertained a purely secular view of the essence of marriage. it is true that luther repudiated the catholic view of the sacramental character of matrimony. by the teaching of the roman church a legal marriage can be effected only by the ratification of the marriage-promise and the blessing spoken over the couple by a consecrated priest, who thus, by his official quality, imparts to the marriage which he solemnizes a sacred character. in luther's days it was held that "the church alone properly had jurisdiction over the question of marriage, and the canonical laws (of the church) included civil as well as spiritual affairs. luther repudiated these canonical laws on the subject of marriage, and separated its civil from its ecclesiastical aspect. he maintained that marriage, as the basis of all family rights, lies entirely within the province of the state, and mast be regulated of necessity by the civil government. 'marriage and the married state,' he declared in his _traubuechlein_ ( , ), 'are civil matters, in the management of which we priests and ministers of the church must not intermeddle. but when we are required, either before the church, or in the church, to bless the pair, to pray over them, or even to marry them, then it is our bounden duty to do so.'" (waring, p. .) in , a papal decree was published which declares any betrothal or marriage entered into by a catholic with a catholic, or by a catholic with a non-catholic, to be valid only on condition that either the betrothal or the marriage take place in the presence or with the sanction of a catholic priest this decree is known as the _ne temere_ decree. it is called thus according to a custom prevailing in the catholic church by which the official deliverances of the popes are cited by giving the initial word, or words, of such a deliverance. the two latin terms _ne temere_ are a warning against reckless action, and the reckless action intended is the one indicated above. we quote a few statements from the _ne temere_ decree, from the work of dr. leitner of passau, which was issued in its fifth edition at regensburg in . dr. leitner is a catholic professor at passau and bears the title "doctor of theology and canon law." dr. leitner's book is in german: _die verlobungs- und eheschliessungsform nach dem dekrete ne temere_, which means, "the form of betrothal and marriage according to the _ne temere_ decree." throughout his book the author cites the original language of the papal deliverance. the decree reaffirms, in the first place, the decree of the council of trent, to this effect: "the holy congregation declares any person who dares to enter into the estate of matrimony, except upon license from the parish priest or of some other priest of the same parish, or of the ordinary, and of two or three witnesses, incapacitated for such a contract, and contracts of this kind are declared null and void." (p. .) regarding betrothals the decree declares: "only such betrothals are regarded as valid and efficacious, according to the law of the church, as are set down in a document signed by the contracting parties and by the parish priest, or the local ordinary, and by at least two witnesses." regarding marriage the decree hands down the following ruling: "only such marriages are valid as are entered into in the presence of the parish priest, or the local ordinary, or of a priest delegated for the purpose by either of these, and of two witnesses." again: "to the above law are amenable all persons baptized in the catholic church, also who have joined the catholic church from errorist or schismatic societies (notwithstanding the fact that either former or the latter have apostatized later) whenever they entered into betrothal or matrimony." lastly: "the laws apply to the aforenamed catholics whenever they enter into betrothal or matrimony with non-catholics, baptized or not, even when they have obtained a dispensation from the obstacle of a mixed religion or of a disparity of cult; except the holy see decrees otherwise for a certain or locality." the operations of this decree have been peculiar. some countries as germany and belgium, promptly secured exemption from it. in canada the decree has caused law suits. one of them, morin _vs_. le croix, was tried in justice greenshield's court at montreal, june , . the judge in his ruling said; "no church, be it the powerful roman catholic church, or the equally great and powerful anglican catholic church, possesses any authority to overrule the civil law. such authority as any church has (in the matter of marriages) is given it by the civil law and is subservient to the civil law." the _protestant magazine_, in vol. iv, no. , published a facsimile of a baptismal certificate for anna susanna dagonya, daughter of stephen dagonya, roman catholic, and mary csoma, reformed, who were married at perth amboy, n. j., august , , by rev. louis nannassy, reformed. their child was born november , , and baptized by rev. francis gross, priest of the holy cross church at perth amboy. in writing out the baptismal certificate, the priest has stated that the child is illegitimate, and that the parents are living in concubinage. under the civil laws of most states the _ne temere_ decree will lead to actions for libel. as related to the authority of the state, it is riotous and seditious. for the state will protect even those for whom the decree is specially published in their civil rights as over against their church. but the decree shows to what absurdities the logical application of rome's teaching on matrimony leads. concubinage--that is the name which it applies to every marriage which she has not sanctioned. marriages of this kind began to be celebrated in countries which rome had theretofore held firmly under its jurisdiction, when martin luther and catherine von bora were married. accordingly, they are entitled to the distinction of being called the adam and eve of the non-catholic paradise of concubinage which pretends to be matrimony. enough said. . luther an advocate of polygamy. during the debate on the abolition of polygamy congressman roberts of utah, on january , , made a speech in the house of representatives in which he said: "here, in the resident portion of this city you erected--may , --a magnificent statue of stern old martin luther, the founder of protestant christendom. you hail him as the apostle of liberty and the inaugurator of a new and prosperous era of civilization for mankind, but he himself sanctioned polygamy with which i am charged. for me you have scorn, for him a monument." taking his cue from this mormon speaker, one of the most recent of luther's catholic critics remarks: "let the wives and mothers of america ponder well the polygamous phase of the reformation before they say 'amen' to the unsavory and brazen laudations of the profligate opponent of christian marriage, christian decency, and christian propriety. compare the teachings of luther on polygamy with those of joseph smith, the mormon prophet and visionary, and see their striking similarity. mormonism in salt lake city, in utah, which has brought so much disgrace to the american people, is but a legitimate outgrowth of luther and lutheranism." this, then, is what will have to be done: a comparison will have to be instituted between the teaching of martin luther and that of the mormon prophet on the subject of polygamy. we may assume that the teachings of the latter are universally known, and shall, accordingly, confine ourselves to luther. two curious facts may be noted before we start our investigation of luther's writings: . is it not remarkable that joseph smith himself does not cite luther as his authority in defense of plural marriages? what an impression would the man have made, had he known what mr. roberts and some catholics know! . charging lutheranism, that is, the lutheran church, with teaching polygamy, implies that the confessional writings of the lutheran church contain this teaching. the person who will furnish the evidence for this charge from the book of concord, which contains the symbolical writings of the lutheran church, will become famous. mr. roberts was not so bold as to embrace lutheranism among the sponsors of his polygamous cult; he only spoke of luther. he was wise. and now, what does luther say on the subject of polygamy? we pass by, as unworthy of note, luther's humorous remarks made in a spirit of banter to his wife, that he would marry another wife. only ill-will can find in this friendly jest an evidence of luther's polygamous propensities. serious references to this matter occur in luther's remarks on the practise of polygamy among the israelites. the mosaic account of abraham's relation to agar, the two marriages of jacob, the regulations regarding women who had become captives in war, the harems of the kings of judah and israel,--all these biblical records, which have perplexed many a student of the bible, necessarily interested luther as a theologian and expounder of the scriptures. every reader of the bible has to form an opinion on these matters. polygamous thoughts, therefore, did not originate in the lustful mind of luther, but statements on the subject of polygamy were demanded of him as a religious teacher. he held that the polygamous relations which the bible notes among the israelites, even among saintly members of this people, must be explained either on the ground of a special dispensation of god for which we do not know the reason, or they must be regarded in the same light as christ regarded the divorces among the jews of his day, namely, as things which god permits among men because of their hardness of heart, and in order to prevent greater evils. ( , .) this view determined luther's attitude toward carlstadt, after this turbulent spirit had quitted wittenberg and gone to orlamuende, where he advocated, amongst other things, the introduction of polygamy. inasmuch as carlstadt did not mean to enforce his strange reforms by arms, as muenzer and the peasants were doing, luther inclined to condone his views on polygamy. he evidently regards this matter as a matter of public policy, like prostitution, which every community and commonwealth must regulate by such statutes as can be devised, "because of the hardness of men's hearts." luther has frequently propounded this perfectly sound view regarding the life and conduct of non-christians: since these people do not acknowledge the laws of god as binding, it matters little what practises they adopt. all that can be done to keep the animal impulses in them somewhat in check is to fix certain limits by means of civil laws beyond which their license may not go. for their rejection of god's laws they will have to answer to their future judge. in a letter addressed to joseph levin metzsch of december , , luther says: "your first question: whether person may have more than one wife? i answer thus: let unbelievers do what they please; christian liberty, however, is regulated by love (charity), so that all that a christian does is done to serve his fellow-man, provided only that he can render such service without jeopardy and damage to his faith and conscience. nowadays, however, everybody is striving for a liberty that profits and pleases him, without regard for the profit and improvement which his neighbor might derive from his action. this is contrary to the teaching of st. paul, who says: 'all things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient' ( cor. , ). only see that your liberty does not become an occasion to the flesh. . . . moreover, although the patriarchs had many wives, christians may not follow their example, because there is no necessity for doing this, no improvement is obtained thereby, and, especially, there is no word of god to justify this practise, while great offense and trouble may come from it. accordingly, i do not believe that christians any longer have this liberty. god would have to publish a command that would declare such a liberty." ( a, f.) to clemens ursinus, pastor at bruck, luther writes under date of march , : "polygamy, which in former times was permitted to the jews and gentiles, cannot be honestly approved of among christians, and cannot be engaged in with a good conscience, unless in an extreme case of necessity, as, for instance, when one of the spouses is separated from the other by leprosy or for a similar cause. accordingly, you may say to the carnal people (with whom you have to do), if they want to be christians, they must keep married fidelity and bridle their flesh, not give it license. if they want to be heathen, let them do what they please, at their own risk." ( a, .) in his comment on the question of the pharisees regarding divorce (matt. , - ), luther says: "many divorces occur still among the turks. if a wife does not yield to the husband, nor act according to his whim and fancy, he forthwith drives her out of the house, and takes one, two, three, or four additional wives, and defends his action by appealing to moses. they have taken out of moses such things as please them and pander to their lust. in turkey they are very cruel to women; any woman that will not submit is cast aside. they toy with their women like a dog with a rag. when they are weary of one woman, they quickly put her beneath the turf and take another. moses has said nothing to justify this practise. my opinion is that there is no real married life among the turks; theirs is a whorish life. it is a terrible tyranny, all the more to be regretted because god does not withhold the common blessing from their intercourse: children are procreated thereby, and yet the mother is sent away by the husband. for this reason there is no true matrimony among the turks. in my opinion, all the turks at the present time are bastards." ( , .) all this is plain enough and should suffice to secure luther against the charge of favoring polygamy. the seeming admission that polygamy might be permissible relates to cases for which the laws of all civilized nations make provisions. how a christian must conduct himself in such a case must be decided on the evidence in each case. likewise, the reference to the christian's liberty from the law does not mean that the christian has the potential right to polygamy, but it means that he must maintain his monogamous relation from a free and willing choice to obey god's commandments in the power of god's grace. polygamy, this is the firm conviction of luther, could only be sanctioned if there were a plain command of god to that effect. luther's remarks about matrimony among the turks should be remembered when catholics cite luther's remarks about king ahasuerus dismissing vashti and summoning esther, and the right of the husband to take to himself his maid-servant when his wife refuses him. by all divine and human laws the matter to which luther refers is a just ground for divorce, and that is all that luther declares. but did not luther sanction the bigamy of philip of hesse? so he did. luther's decision in this case must be studied in the light of all the evidence which we possess. catholic theologians, before all others, should be able to appreciate luther's claim that what was said to the landgrave was said to him "in the person of christ," as the counsel which a confessor gave to a burdened conscience. catholics fail to mention that luther repelled bigamous thoughts in philip of hesse fourteen years before the landgrave took margaret von der saal. the evidence was found in the state archives at kassel, now at marburg, in a fragment of a letter which niedner published in the _zeitschrift fuer historische theologie_, , no. , p. . the letter is dated november , ; philip's bigamous marriage took place march , . in this letter luther says to philip: "as regards the other matter, my faithful warning and advice is that no man, christians in particular, should have more than one wife, not only for the reason that offense would be given, and christians must not needlessly give, but most diligently avoid giving, offense, but also for the reason that we have no word of god regarding this matter on which we might base a belief that such action would be well-pleasing to god and to christians. let heathen and turks do what they please. some of the ancient fathers had many wives, but they were urged to this by necessity, as abraham and jacob, and later many kings, who according to the law of moses obtained the wives of their friends, on the death of the latter, as an inheritance. the example of the fathers is not a sufficient argument to convince a christian: he must have, in addition, a divine word that makes him sure, just as they had a word of that kind from god. for where there was no need or cause, the ancient fathers did not have more than one wife, as isaac, joseph, moses, and many others. for this reason i cannot advise for, but must advise against, your intention, particularly since you are a christian, unless there were an extreme necessity, as, for instance, if the wife were leprous or the husband were deprived of her for some other reason. on what grounds to forbid other people such marriages i know not" ( a, f.) this letter effected that the landgrave did not carry out his intention, but failing, nevertheless, to lead a chaste life, he did not commune, except once in extreme illness, because of his accusing conscience. how luther, fourteen years later, was induced to virtually reverse his opinion he has told himself in a lengthy letter to the elector frederick. this letter is luther's best justification. it is dated june , , and reads: "most serene, high-born elector, most gracious lord:--i am sorry to learn that your grace is importuned by the court of dresden about the landgrave's business. your grace asks what answer to give the men of meissen. as the affair was one of the confessional, both melanchthon and i were unwilling to communicate it even to your grace, for it is right to keep confessional matters secret, both the sin confessed and the counsel given, and had the landgrave not revealed the matter and the confessional counsel, there would never have been all this nauseating unpleasantness.--i still say that if the matter were brought before me to-day, i should not be able to give counsel different from what i did. setting apart the fact that i know i am not as wise as they think they are, i need conceal nothing, especially as it has already been made known. the state of affairs is as follows: martin bucer brought a letter and pointed out that, on account of certain faults in the landgrave's wife, the landgrave was not able to keep himself chaste, and that he had hitherto lived in a way which was not good, but that he would like to be at one with the principal heads of the evangelic church, and he declared solemnly before god and his conscience that he could not in future avoid such vices unless he were permitted to take another wife. we were deeply horrified at this tale and the offense which must follow, and we begged his grace not to do as he proposed. but we were told again that he could not abandon his project, and if he could not obtain what he wanted from us, he would disregard us and turn to the emperor and pope. to prevent this we humbly begged that if his grace would not, or, as he averred before god and his conscience, could not, do otherwise, yet that he could keep it a secret. though necessity compelled him, yet he could not defend his act before the world and the imperial laws; this he promised to do, and we accordingly agreed to help him before god and cover it up as much as possible with such examples as that of abraham. this all happened as though in the confessional, and no one can accuse us of having acted as we did willingly or voluntarily or with pleasure or joy. it was hard enough for our hearts, but we could not prevent it, we thought to give his conscience such counsel as we could.--i have indeed learned several confessional secrets, both while i was still a papist and later, which, if they were revealed, i should live to deny or else publish the whole confession. such things belong not to the secular courts, nor are they to be published. god has here his own judgment, and must counsel souls in matters where no worldly law nor wisdom can help. my preceptor in the cloister, a fine old man, had many such affairs, and once had to say of them with a sigh: 'alas, alas! such things are so perplexed and desperate that no wisdom, law, nor reason can avail; one must commend them to divine goodness.' so instructed, i have, accordingly, in this case also acted agreeably to divine goodness.--but had i known that the landgrave had long before satisfied his desires, and could well satisfy them with others, as i have now just learned that he did with her of eschwege, truly no angel would have induced me to give such counsel. i gave it only in consideration of his unavoidable necessity and weakness, and to put his conscience out of peril, as bucer represented the case to me. much less would i ever have advised that there should be a public marriage, to which (though he told me nothing of this) a young princess and young countess should come, which is truly not to be borne and is insufferable to the whole empire. but i understood and hoped, as long as he had to go the common way with sin and shame and weakness of the flesh, that he would take some honorable maiden or other in secret marriage, even if the relation did not have a legal look before the world. my concession was on account of the great need of his conscience--such as happened to other great lords. in like manner i advised certain priests in the catholic lands of duke george and the bishops secretly to marry their cooks.--this was my confessional counsel about which i would much rather have kept silence, but it has been wrung from me, and i could do nothing but speak. but the men of dresden speak as though i had taught the same for thirteen years, and yet they give us to understand what a friendly heart they have to us, and what great desire for love and unity, just as if there were no scandal or sin in their lives, which are ten times worse before god than anything i ever advised. but the world must always smugly rail at the moat in its neighbor's eye, and forget the beam in its own eye. if i must defend all i have said or done in former years, especially at the beginning, i must beg the pope to do the same, for if they defend their former acts (let alone their present ones), they would belong to the devil more than to god.--i am not ashamed of my counsel, even if it should be published in all the world; but for the sake of the unpleasantness which would then follow, i should prefer, if possible, to have kept it secret. martin luther, with his own hand." ( b, ; transl. by preserved smith.) about a year later a hessian preacher, by the name of johann lening, undertook to justify the bigamy of the landgrave. under the pseudonym "huldricus neobulus" he published a "dialogus," that is, "an amicable conversation between two persons on the question whether it is in accordance with, or contrary to, divine, natural, imperial, and spiritual laws for a person to have more than one wife at a time," etc. the writer defended bigamy. in an unfinished reply to this book luther takes strong grounds against him. referring to the author's argument that bigamy was sanctioned by moses, luther says: "the reference to the fathers of whom moses speaks is irrelevant: moses is dead. granted, however, that bigamy was legal in the days of the fathers and moses, --which can never be established,--still they had god's word for it that such a permission was given them. that we have not. and although it was permitted to the jews and tolerated by god, while god himself considered it wrong, . . . it was merely a dispensation. . . . now, there is a great difference between a legal right and a dispensation, or something that is tolerated or permitted. a legal right is not a dispensation, and a dispensation is not a legal right; whoever does, obtains, or holds something by a dispensation does not do, obtain, or hold it by legal right." luther then enters upon a brief discussion of the bigamous relationships which were created by the mosaic laws, and explains that legislation as emergency legislation. he says: "what need is there why we should try to find all sorts of reasons to explain why the fathers under moses were permitted to have many wives? god is sovereign; he may abrogate, alter, mitigate a law as he pleases, for emergency's sake or not. but it does not behoove us to imitate such instances, much less to establish them as a right. but this tulrich [so luther calls the unknown author] rashly declares carnal lust free, and wants to put the world back to where it was before the flood, when they took them wives, not like the jews by god's permission, or because of an emergency or for charity's sake towards homeless women, as moses directs, but, as the text says, 'which they chose' (gen. , ). that is the way nowadays to rise to the stars. in this way we have moses and the fathers with their examples as beautiful cloaks for carnal liberty; we say with our lips that we are following the examples of the fathers, but in very deed we act contrary to them. lord, have mercy! if the world continues, what all may we not expect to happen these times, if even now shameless fellows may print what they please." ( b, f.) one might go more exhaustively into the evidence, but the materials here submitted will suffice to convince most men that, while luther's advice to philip did create a bigamous relation, luther was not a defender of bigamy. every one who has had to deal with questions relating to married life knows that situations arise in the matrimonial relation which simply cannot be threshed out in public, and in which the honest advice of a pious person is invoked to find a way out of a complication. that was the situation confronting luther: what he advised was meant as an emergency measure to prevent something that was worse. in the same manner luther had expressed the opinion that it would have been easier to condone a bigamous relation in henry viii of england than the unjust divorce which the king was seeking. as a matter of fact, however, luther and his wittenberg colleagues were grossly hoodwinked in the matter, both by the landgrave himself and, what is worse, by the landgrave's court-preacher, bucer. had the true facts been known, the advice, as luther clearly states, would never have been given. but we can well understand how luther can declare that under the circumstances under which he thought he was acting he could not have given any different advice. personally, we have always resented the veiled threat in the landgrave's request that he would apply to the pope or the emperor. perhaps the remark was not understood as a threat, but as an expression of despair. at any rate, philip was confident of getting from rome what he was not sure of obtaining from luther. ought not this remark of the landgrave caution luther's catholic critics to be very careful in what they say about the heinousness of luther's offense in granting a dispensation from a moral precept? have they really no such thing as a "dispensation" at rome? has not the married relationship come up for "dispensation" in the chancelleries of the vatican innumerable times? has not one of the canonized saints of rome, st. augustine, declared that bigamy might be permitted if a wife was sterile? was not concubinage still recognized by law in the sixteenth century in ireland? did not king diarmid have two legitimate wives and two concubines? and he was a catholic. what have catholics to say in rejoinder to sir henry maine's assertion that the canon law of their church brought about numerous sexual inequalities? or to joseph maccabe's statement that not until was there any authoritative mandate of the church against polygamy, and that even after this prohibition there were numerous instances of concubinage and polygamic marriages in christian communities? or to hallam in his _middle ages_, where he reports concubinage in europe? or to lea, who proves that this evil was not confined to the laity? (see gallighan, _women under polygamy_, pp. . . . . . .) all that has so far been said about luther's views on the subject of polygamy could be most powerfully reinforced by a review of luther's teaching on matrimony as a divine institution, which luther consistently throughout his writings regards as monogamous. but this is too well known to require restatement, and is really outside of the scope of this review, which must content itself with submitting the direct argument in rebuttal of the catholic charge of luther's advocacy of polygamy. this polygamous luther, too, is a vision that is rendered possible only through spectacles of hopeless bias. . luther announces his death. mark twain awoke one morning to find himself reported dead. he did not accept the invitation suggested in the report, but wired to his friends: "reports of my death grossly exaggerated." luther was placed in a similar predicament by catholics who were deeply interested in the question how long he was to continue to live. one day, in the early part of march, , he was handed a printed letter in italian which contained the news of his demise under curious circumstances. he thought that he ought not to withhold this interesting information from the world: he had a german translation made of the document, which he published with his remarks as follows: "copy of a letter of the ambassador of the most christian king regarding a horrible sign which occurred in the shameful death of martin luther. "a horrible and unheard-of miracle which the blessed god has wrought in the shameful death of martin luther, who went to hell, soul and body, as may be clearly seen from a chapter of the letter of the ambassador of the most christian king, to the praise and glory of jesus christ and the confirmation and comfort of the faithful. _"copy of the letter_. " . martin luther, having been taken ill, desired the holy sacrament of the body of our lord jesus christ. he died immediately upon receiving it. when he saw that his sickness was very violent and he was near death, he prayed that his body might be placed on an altar and worshiped as cod. but the goodness and providence of god had resolved to put an end to his great error and to silence him forever. accordingly, god did not omit to work this great miracle, which was very much needed, to cause the people to desist from the great, destructive, and ruinous error which the said luther has caused in the world. as soon as his body had been placed in the grave, an awful rumbling and noise was heard, as if hell and the devils were collapsing. all present were seized with a great fright, terror, and fear, and when they raised their eyes to heaven, they plainly saw the most holy host of our lord jesus christ which this unworthy man was permitted to receive unworthily. i affirm that all who were present saw the most holy host visibly floating in the air. they took the most holy host very devoutly and with great reverence, and gave it a decent place in the sanctuary. " . when this had been done, no such tumult and hellish rumbling was heard any more that day. however, during the following night, at the place where martin luther's corpse had been buried, there was heard by everybody in the community a much greater confusion than the first time. the people arose and flocked together in great fear and terror. at daybreak they went to open the grave where the wicked body of luther had been placed. when the grave was opened, you could clearly see that there was no body, neither flesh nor bone, nor any clothes. but such a sulphuric stench rose from the grave that all who were standing around the grave turned sick. on account of this miracle many have reformed their lives by returning to the holy christian faith, to the honor, praise, and glory of jesus christ, and to the strengthening and confirmation of his holy christian church, which is a pillar of truth." luther appended the following comment to this pious document: "and i, martinus luther, d., do by these indentures acknowledge and testify that i have received this angry fiction concerning my death on the twenty-first day of march, and that i have read it with considerable pleasure and joy, except the blasphemous portion of the document in which this lie is attributed to the exalted majesty of god. otherwise i felt quite tickled on my knee-cap and under my left heel at this evidence how cordially the devil and his minions, the pope and the papists, hate me. may god turn them from the devil! "however, if it is decreed that theirs is a sin unto death, and that my prayer is in vain, then may god grant that they fill up their measure and write nothing else but such books for their comfort and joy. let them run their course; they are on the right track; they want to have it so. meanwhile i want to know how they are going to be saved, and how they will atone for and revoke all their lies and blasphemies with which they have filled the world." ( b, f.) similar, even more grotesque tales have been served the faithful by catholic writers. the star production of this kind was published years ago in the _ohio-waisenfreund_. it related that horrible and uncanny signs had accompanied luther's death. weird shrieks and noises were heard, devils were flying about in the air; the heavens were shrouded in a pall of gloom. when the funeral cortege started from eisleben, a vast flock of ravens had gathered and accompanied the corpse croaking incessantly and uttering dismal cries all the way to wittenberg, etc., etc. these crude stories have now been censored out of existence. catholics nowadays prefer to lie in a more refined and cultured manner about luther's death: luther committed suicide; he was found hanging from his bedpost one morning. comment is unnecessary. luther died peacefully in the presence of friends, confessing, christ and asserting his firm allegiance to the faith he had proclaimed with his last breath. the probable cause of his death was a stroke of paralysis. luther began to feel pains in the chest late in the afternoon of february , . he bore up manfully and continued working at his business for the count of mansfeld who had called him to eisleben. after a light evening meal he sat chatting in a cheerful mood with his companions, and retired early, as was his custom in his declining years. the pains in the chest became worse, and he began to feel chilly. medicaments were administered, and after a while he fell into a slumber, which lasted an hour. he awoke with increased pain and a feeling of great congestion, which caused the death-perspiration to break out. he was rapidly turning cold. all this time he was praying and reciting portions from the psalms and other texts. three times in succession he repeated his favorite text, john , . gradually he became peaceful, and his end was so gentle that the bystanders were in doubt whether he had expired or was only in a swoon. they worked with him, trying to rouse him, until they were convinced that he had breathed his last. the catholic apothecary john landau, who had been called in while luther was thought to be in a swoon, helped to establish the fact of his death. . luther's view of his slanderers. luther was the subject of gross misrepresentation and vile slander during his lifetime: at first he used to correct erroneous reports about himself, usually in his polemical writings, later he merely noted them with a brief and scornful comment, and finally ignored them altogether. he relates that he had treated many slanderous publications of eck, faber, emser, cochlaeus, and many others with silent contempt. ( , ; , .) it was a physical impossibility for him to reply to all the misleading and vicious reports that were being circulated about him. he was convinced that he must use his time and strength for more necessary matters. his friends in many instances relieved him of the unpleasant task. moreover, after he had answered those who had first assailed him in the beginning of his public activity, he could afford to disregard many slanders, because they were mere repetitions. luther was aware that he was probably the worst-hated man of his times. he declares his belief that in the last hundred years there has not lived a man to whom the world was more hostile than to himself. ( , .) persons praising him, he says, are regarded as having committed a more grievous sin than any idolater, blasphemer, perjurer, fornicator, adulterer, murderer, or thief. ( , .) anything that luther has said, he observes, is denounced as coming from the devil; what duke george (one of his fiercest enemies), faber, or bucer say or do is highly approved, ( , .) like elijah, he was charged with having disturbed israel: before he began preaching there was peace and quiet, now all is confusion. ( , .) he is held responsible for the peasants' revolt and the rise of the sacramentarian sects. ( , .) a laborer whom his wife had hired became drunk and committed murder; at once the rumor was spread that luther kept a murderer as his servant. ( b, .) what he writes is represented as having been inspired by envy, pride, bitterness, yea, by satan himself; those, however, who write against him are regarded as being inspired by the holy ghost. ( , .) he observes that beggars become rich, obtain favors from princes and kings, remunerative positions, honors, and bishoprics by turning against him. ( , .) some attribute the election of adrian vi as pope to luther (this pope was believed to favor reforms: he did not last long); and luther expects that he is helping dr. schmid to become a cardinal because he is opposing him. ( , .) dunces become doctors, knaves become saints, and the most besotted characters are glorified when they try their vile mouths and pens against luther. ( , .) the easiest way for any man to become a canonized saint even during his lifetime, though he were a person of the stripe of a nero or caligula, is by hating luther. ( , .) on the cover of the pamphlet containing his sermon on the sacrament luther ordered a picture consisting of two monstrances printed; this was promptly explained to mean that he had adopted the bohemian errors, for hus had administered the lord's supper in both kinds. ( , .) some pretended that they could see two geese in this picture; the meaning was plain: one of them signified hus (hus in bohemian means goose), the other, luther. ( , .) luther would not have been human if incidents like these had not caused him pain. occasionally he would give vent to his grief, but his manly courage, too, would soon assert itself, and he would expose the hollowness, insincerity, and futility of the lying tales that were spread about him. at a public meeting in campo flore he was cursed, sentenced to death, and burned in effigy. ( a, .) he has read offensive reports about himself, and puts them down with the calm declaration: there is not a man that writes against luther without having to resort to horrible and manifest lies. ( , .) he is sure that he has not had an opponent who in an argument would stick to the point; they all had to evade the issue. ( , .) shameful falsehoods are canvassed about him at the court of king ferdinand ( , ); luther comforts himself with the reflection that others have suffered the same vilification before him, for instance, wyclif, hus, and others ( , ). besides, he is able to understand that the real reason why the papists regard him as such a perverse and untractable person is because they are utterly perverse themselves. ( , .) but his sweetest comfort is in reflecting that it is his preaching which has brought his manifold afflictions upon him. poor luther is always wrong: the sacramentarians and anabaptists hate him worse than they hate the pope, and the pope hates him worse than he hates other heretics, because they all fight against the gospel which luther preaches. ( , .) if i were to keep silent, he says, or preach as i used to do, concerning indulgences, pilgrimages, adoration of the saints, purgatory, the carnival of the mass, i could easily keep the favor and friendship of the great. ( , .) but for the sake of the true doctrine and those who profess it,--whom his opponents wish to suppress, luther is willing to suffer hatred, persecution, calumnies, and everything else that his enemies may devise against him. ( , .) what have i done, he exclaims, to deserve the enmity of the pope and his rabble, except that i have preached christ? ( , .) he is convinced from the papists' own confession that he is being persecuted for no other reason than because he is preaching the gospel. ( , .} knowing the reason why he is hated, luther glories in his tribulations. duke george, he says, calls me a desperate, low-bred, perjured knave: i shall consider those ugly names my emeralds, rubies, and diamonds. ( , .) he would fear that there must be something wrong about his teaching if the people whom he knows would not fight against him: if these people do not condemn his doctrine, his doctrine cannot be acceptable to god. ( , .) he prefers to have them rage against him. their violence shall not disturb him greatly, because he has championed the lord's cause, and that, in all sincerity, without malice toward any person. ( a, .) . let the papists exhaust themselves in slanders against him: he knows he has the scriptures on his side, and they have the scriptures against them. ( , .) they intend to grind luther to pieces, not a hair of him is to remain; he knows that they will not be able to harm a hair on his head. ( , .) thus luther thought and spoke of his detractors and defamers. such was his comfort and his courage in the face of base calumnies and undeserved hatred. those who know him best will continue to love him, and admire him the more for the enemies he has made. -- if the reader of this book has had the sensation of a traveler in a storm-tossed vessel, he has experienced mentally what luther faced in dread reality during almost the whole of his agitated life. he had to weather many a squall, and storm, and hurricane. outwardly his life seems a continuous hurly-burly. yet there is in this man's heart a great and holy calm. the tumult of his life is all on the surface. he reminds one of the lines in harriet beecher stowe's "hymn": when winds are raging o'er the upper ocean, and billows wild contend with angry roar, 't is said, far down beneath the wild commotion, that peaceful stillness reigneth evermore. far, far beneath, the noise of tempest dieth, and silver waves chime ever peacefully, and no rude storm, how fierce soe'er it flieth, disturbs the sabbath of that deeper sea. we have had glimpses of the hidden depths in luther's mind: his thought reaches down to the lowest depths of human misery, and then goes deeper still towards the limits of god's rescuing love and conquering grace which human mind has never reached. for these divine profundities no plummet will ever sound. he who could surrender himself wholly to the study of the greatness and beauty of luther's constructive thought would enjoy a spiritual luxury and be drawn into that sublime and solemn peace of god which passes all understanding. he would behold this strenuous man; who has been shown mostly in his working-clothes in these pages, in his holiday-attire, with that sabbath in his heart which occurs wherever christ is the loved and adored object of the thinker's contemplation. [illustration: luther. (from a portrait by cranach in the town church at weimar.)] life of luther by julius kostlin with illustrations from authentic sources translated from the german _author's dedication_ to my dear wife pauline with the words of luther 'god's highest gift on earth is to have a pious, cheerful, god-fearing, home-keeping wife.' author's preface. no german has ever influenced so powerfully as luther the religious life, and, through it, the whole history, of his people; none has ever reflected so faithfully, in his whole personal character and conduct, the peculiar features of that life and history, and been enabled by that very means to render us a service so effectual and so popular. if we recall to fresh life and remembrance the great men of past ages, we germans shall always put luther in the van: for us protestants, the object of our love and veneration, who will not prevent, however, or prejudice the most candid historical inquiry; for others, a rock of offence, whom even slander and falsehood will never overcome. i have already in my larger work, 'martin luther: his life and writings,' vols., , put together all the materials available for that subject, together with the necessary references, historical and critical, and have endeavoured to explain and illustrate at length the subject matter of his various writings. i now offer this sketch of his life to the wide circle of what are called educated german readers. for further explanations and proofs of statements herein contained i would refer them to my larger work. further investigation has prompted me to make some alterations, but only a few, in matters of detail. for the illustrations and illustrative documents i beg to express my warm thanks, and those of the publisher, to the friends who have kindly assisted us in the work. j. kostlin, professor at the university of halle-wittenberg. _oct_. , , the anniversary of luther's theses. contents. part i. _luther's childhood and youth, up to his entering the convent.-- - ._ i. birth and parentage ii. childhood and school-days iii. student-days at erfurt and entry into the convent.-- - part ii. _luther as monk and professor, until his entry on the war of reformation.-- - ._ i. at the convent at erfurt, till ii. call to wittenberg. journey to rome iii. luther as theological teacher, to part iii. _the breach with rome, up to the diet of worms.-- - ._ i. the ninety-five theses ii. the controversy concerning indulgences iii. luther at angsburg before caietan. appeal to a council iv. miltitz and the disputation at leipzig, with its results v. luther's further work, writings, and inward progress until vi. alliance with the humanists and nobility vii. crisis of secession: luther's works--to the christian nobility of the german nation, and on the babylonian captivity. viii. the bull of excommunication, and luther's reply ix. the diet of worms part iv. _from the diet of worms to the peasants' war and luther's marriage._ i. luther at the wartburg, to his visit to wittenberg in . ii. luther's further sojourn at the wartburg, and his return to wittenberg, iii. luther's reappearance and fresh labours at wittenberg, iv. luther and his anti-catholic work of reformation, up to v. the reformer against the fanatics and peasants, up to vi. luther's marriage part v. _luther and the reconstruction of the church, to the first religious peace.-- - ._ i. survey ii. continued labours and personal life iii. erasmus and henry viii. controversy with zwingli and his followers, up to iv. church divisions in germany. war with the turks. the conference at marburg, v. the diet of augsburg, and luther at coburg, vi. from the diet of augsburg to the religious peace of nüremberg, . death of the elector john part vi. _from the religious peace of nÜremberg to the death of luther._ i. luther under john frederick ii. negotiations respecting a council and union among the protestants. the legate vergerius, . the wittenberg concord, iii. negotiations respecting a council and union among the protestants (continued). the meeting at schmalkald, . peace with the swiss. iv. other labours and proceedings, - . the archbishop albert and schönitz. agricola v. luther and the progress and internal troubles of protestantism, - vi. luther and the progress and internal troubles of protestantism (continued), - vii. luther's later life; domestic and personal viii. luther's last year and death list of illustrations. luther. (from a portrait by cranach in the town church at weimar) . coat of arms . hans luther . margaret luther . luther's cell at erfurt . staupitz. (from the portrait in st. peter's convent at salzburg) facsimile from luther's psalter, at wolfenbuttel . title and preface of penitential psalms . spalatin. (from l. cranach's portrait) . erasmus. (from the portrait by a. dürer) . leo x. (from his portrait by raphael) facsimile of placard of indulgences, . the abchbishop albert. (from dürer's engraving) . title-page of a pamphlet written at the beginning of the reformation, with an illustration showing the sale of indulgences . the castle church. (from the wittenberg book of relics, ) . the emperor maximilian. (from his portrait by albert dürer) . duke george of saxony. (from an old woodcut) . luther. (from an engraving of cranach, in ) . dr. john eck. (from an old woodcut) . melancthon. (from a portrait by dürer) . lucas cranach. (from a portrait by himself) . w. pirkheimer. (from a portrait by albert dürer) . ulrich von hutten. (from an old woodcut) . francis von sickingen. (from an old engraving) . title-page of the second edition of luther's treatise to the christian nobility of the german nation . title-page, slightly reduced, of the original tract 'on the liberty of a christian man' . charles v. (from an engraving by b. beham, in ) . luther. (from an engraving by cranach, in ) . luther as "squire george." (from a woodcut by cranach) . bugenhagen. (from a picture by cranach in his album, at berlin, ) . mÜnzer. (from an old woodcut) . luther. (from a portrait by cranach in .) at wittenberg. . catharine von bora, luther's wipe. (from a portrait by cranach about .) at berlin . luther's ring fbom catharine . luther's double ring . the saxon electors, frederick the wise, john, and john frederick. (from a picture by cranach.) at nüremberg . facsimile of frederick's signature . philip of hesse. (from a woodcut of brosamer) . luther. (from a portrait by cranach in .) at berlin . luther's wife. (from a portrait by cranach in .) at berlin . zwingli. (from an old engraving) . facsimile of the superscription and signature to the marburg articles . veit dietrich, as pastor of nüremberg. (from an old woodcut) . luther's seal. (taken from letters written in ) . luther's coat of arms. (from old prints) . butzer. (from the old original woodcut of beusner) . agricola. (from a miniature portrait by cranach, in the university album at wittenberg, ) . jonas. (from a portrait by cranach, in his album at berlin, ) . amsdorf. (from an old woodcut) . luther. (from a portrait by cranach, in his album, at berlin) . wittenberg. (from an old engraving) . the "luther-house" (previously the convent), before its recent restoration . luther's room . luther's daughter 'lene.' (from cranach's portrait) . door of luther's house at wittenberg . mathesius. (from an old woodcut) . luther in . (from a woodcut of cranach) . jonas' glass . address of luther's letter of february . luther after death. (from a picture ascribed to cranach) . cast of luther after death. (at halle) facsimile of part of the edict of worms, may ( ), being the title and conclusion, with the signature of the emperor charles title and commencement of the gospel of st. matthew, in the first edition of the new testament, . (from the original in the royal public library at stüttgart) facsimile of concluding portion of luther's will, with the attestations of melancthon, crueiger, and bugenhagen. (at pesth) facsimile of letter of luther to his wife, of february , . (at breslau) luther's life. part i. luther's childhood and youth up to his entering the convent.-- - . chapter i. birth and parentage. on the th of november, , their first child was born to a young couple, hans and margaret luder, at eisleben, in saxony, where the former earned his living as a miner. that child was martin luther. his parents had shortly before removed thither from möhra, the old home of his family. this place, called in old records more and möre, lies among the low hills where the thuringian chain of wooded heights runs out westwards towards the valley of the werra, about eight miles south of eisenach, and four miles north of salzungen, close to the railway which now connects these two towns. luther thus comes from the very centre of germany. the ruler there was the elector of saxony. möhra was an insignificant village, without even a priest of its own, and with only a chapel affiliated to the church of the neighbouring parish. the population consisted for the most part of independent peasants, with house and farmstead, cattle and horses. mining, moreover, was being carried on there in the fifteenth century, and copper was being discovered in the copper schist, of which the names of schieferhalden and schlackenhaufen still survive to remind us. the soil was not very favourable for agriculture, and consisted partly of moorland, which gave the place its name. those peasants who possessed land were obliged to work extremely hard. they were a strong and sturdy race. from this peasantry sprang luther. 'i am a peasant's son,' he said once to melancthon in conversation. 'my father, grandfather--all my ancestors were thorough peasants.' [illustration: coat of arms] his father's relations were to be found in several families and houses in möhra, and even scattered in the country around. the name was then written luder, and also ludher, lüder, and leuder. we find the name of luther for the first time as that of martin luther, the professor at wittenberg, shortly before he entered on his war of reformation, and from him it was adopted by the other branches of the family. originally it was not a surname, but a christian name, identical with lothar, which signifies one renowned in battle. a very singular coat of arms, consisting of a cross-bow, with a rose on each side, had been handed down through, no doubt, many generations in the family, and is to be seen on the seal of luther's brother james. the origin of these arms is unknown; the device leads one to conclude that the family must have blended with another by intermarriage, or by succeeding to its property. contemporaneous records exist to show how conspicuously the relatives of luther, at möhra and in the district, shared the sturdy character of the local peasantry, always ready for self-help, and equally ready for fisticuffs. firmly and resolutely, for many generations, and amidst grievous persecutions and disorders, such as visited möhra in particular during the thirty years' war, this race maintained its ground. three families of luther exist there at this day, who are all engaged in agriculture; and a striking likeness to the features of martin luther may still be traced in many of his descendants, and even in other inhabitants of möhra. not less remarkable, as noted by one who is familiar with the present people of the place, are the depth of feeling and strong common sense which distinguish them, in general, to this day. the house in which luther's grandfather lived, or rather that which was afterwards built on the site, can still, it is believed, but not with certainty, be identified. near this house stands now a statue of luther in bronze. at möhra, then, luther's father, hans, had grown up to manhood. his grandfather's name was henry, but of him we hear nothing during luther's time. his grandmother died in . his mother's maiden name was ziegler; we afterwards find relations of hers at eisenach; the other old account, which made her maiden name lindemann, probably originated from confusing her with luther's grandmother. what brought hans to eisleben was the copper mining, which here, and especially in the county of mansfeld, to which eisleben belonged, had prospered to an extent never known around möhra, and was even then in full swing of activity. at eisleben, the miners' settlements soon formed two new quarters of the town. hans had, as we know, two brothers, and very possibly there were more of the family, so that the paternal inheritance had to be divided. he was evidently the eldest of the brothers, of whom one, heinz, or henry, who owned a farm of his own, was still living in , ten years after the death of hans. but at möhra the law of primogeniture, which vests the possession of the land in the eldest son, was not recognised; either the property was equally divided, or, as was customary in other parts of the country, the estate fell to the share of the youngest. this custom was referred to in after years by luther in his remark that in this world, according to civil law, the youngest son is the heir of his father's house. we must not omit to notice the other reasons which have been assigned for his leaving his old home. it has been repeatedly asserted, in recent times, and even by protestant writers, that the father of our great reformer had sought to escape the consequences of a crime committed by him at möhra. the matter stands thus: in luther's lifetime his catholic opponent witzel happened to call out to jonas, a friend of luther's, in the heat of a quarrel, 'i might call the father of your luther a murderer.' twenty years later the anonymous author of a polemical work which appeared at paris actually calls the reformer 'the son of the möhra assassin.' with these exceptions, not a trace of any story of this kind, in the writings of either friend or foe, can be found in that or in the following century. it was at the beginning of the eighteenth century, in an official report on mining at möhra, that the story, evidently based on oral tradition, assumed all at once a more definite shape; the statement being that luther's father had accidentally killed a peasant, who was minding some horses grazing. this story has been told to travellers in our own time by people of möhra, who have gone so far as to point out the fatal meadow. we are forced to notice it, not, indeed, as being in the least authenticated, but simply on account of the authority recently claimed for the tradition. for it is plain that what is now a matter of hearsay at möhra was a story wholly unknown there not many years ago, was first introduced by strangers, and has since met with several variations at their hands. the idea of a criminal flying from möhra to mansfeld, which was only a few miles off, and was equally subject to the elector of saxony, is absurd, and in this case is strangely inconsistent with the honourable position soon attained, as we shall see, by hans luther himself at mansfeld. moreover, the very fact that witzel's spiteful remark was long known to luther's enemies, coupled with the fact that they never turned it to account, shows plainly how little they ventured to make it a matter of serious reproach. luther during his lifetime had to hear from them that his father was a bohemian heretic, his mother a loose woman, employed at the baths, and he himself a changeling, born of his mother and the devil. how triumphantly would they have talked about the murder or manslaughter committed by his father, had the charge admitted of proof! whatever occurrence may have given rise to such a story, we have no right to ascribe it either to any fault or any crime of the father. more on this subject it is needless to add; the two strange statements we have mentioned do not attempt to establish any definite connection between the supposed crime and the removal to eisleben. the day, and even the very hour, when her first-born came into the world, luther's mother carefully treasured in her mind. it was between eleven and twelve o'clock at night. agreeably to the custom of the time, he was baptised in the church of st. peter the next day. it was the feast of st. martin, and he was called after that saint. tradition still identifies the house where he was born; it stands in the lower part of the town, close to st. peter's church. several conflagrations, which devastated eisleben, have left it undestroyed. but of the original building only the walls of the ground-floor remain: within these there is a room facing the street, which is pointed out as the one where luther first saw the light. the church was rebuilt soon after his birth, and was then called after st. peter and st. paul; the present font still retains, it is said, some portions of the old one. [illustration: fig. .--hans luther.] when the child was six months old, his parents removed to the town of mansfeld, about six miles off. so great was the number of the miners who were then crowding to eisleben, the most important place in the county, that we can well understand how luther's father failed there to realise his expectations, and went in search of better prospects to the other capital of the rich mining district. here, at mansfeld, or, more strictly, at lower mansfeld, as it is called, from its position, and to distinguish it from cloister-mansfeld, he came among a people whose whole life and labour were devoted to mining. the town itself lay on the banks of a stream, inclosed by hills, on the edge of the harz country. above it towered the stately castle of the counts, to whom the place belonged. the character of the scenery is more severe, and the air harsher than in the neighbourhood of möhra. luther himself called his mansfeld countrymen sons of the harz. in the main, these harz people are much rougher than the thuringians. [illustration: margaret luther.] here also, at first, luther's parents found it a hard struggle to get on. 'my father,' said the reformer, 'was a poor miner; my mother carried in all the wood upon her back; they worked the flesh off their bones to bring us up: no one nowadays would ever have such endurance.' it must not, however, be forgotten that carrying wood in those days was less a sign of poverty than now. gradually their affairs improved. the whole working of the mines belonged to the counts, and they leased out single portions, called smelting furnaces, sometimes for lives, sometimes for a term of years. harts luther succeeded in obtaining two furnaces, though only on a lease of years. he must have risen in the esteem of his town-fellows even more rapidly than in outward prosperity. the magistracy of the town consisted of a bailiff, the chief landowners, and four of the community. among these four hans luther appears in a public document as early as . his children were numerous enough to cause him constant anxiety for their maintenance and education: there were at least seven of them, for we know of three brothers and three sisters of the reformer. the luther family never rose to be one of the rich families of mansfeld, who possessed furnaces by inheritance, and in time became landowners; but they associated with them, and in some cases numbered them among their intimate friends. the old hans was also personally known to his counts, and was much esteemed by them. in the reformer publicly appealed to their personal acquaintance with his father and himself, against the slanders circulated about his origin. hans, in course of time, bought himself a substantial dwelling-house in the principal street of the town. a small portion of it remains standing to this day. there is still to be seen a gateway, with a well-built arch of sandstone, which bears the luther arms of cross-bow and roses, and the inscription j.l. . this was, no doubt, the work of james luther, in the year when his father hans died, and he took possession of the property. it is only quite recently that the stone has so far decayed as to cause the arms and part of the inscription to peel off. the earliest personal accounts that we have of luther's parents, date from the time when they already shared in the honour and renown acquired by their son. they frequently visited him at wittenberg, and moved with simple dignity among his friends. the father, in particular, melancthon describes as a man, who, by purity of character and conduct, won for himself universal affection and esteem. of the mother he says that the worthy woman, amongst other virtues, was distinguished above all for her modesty, her fear of god, and her constant communion with god in prayer. luther's friend, the court-preacher spalatin, spoke of her as a rare and exemplary woman. as regards their personal appearance, the swiss kessler describes them in as small and short persons, far surpassed by their son martin in height and build; he adds, also, that they were dark-complexioned. five years later their portraits were painted by lucas cranach: these are now to be seen in the wartburg, and are the only ones of this couple which we possess. [footnote: strange to say, subsequently and even in our own days, a portrait of martin luther's wife in her old age has been mistaken for one of his mother.] in these portraits, the features of both the parents have a certain hardness; they indicate severe toil during a long life. at the same time, the mouth and eyes of the father wear an intelligent, lively, energetic, and clever expression. he has also, as his son martin observed, retained to old age a 'strong and hardy frame.' the mother looks more wearied by life, but resigned, quiet, and meditative. her thin face, with its large bones, presents a mixture of mildness and gravity. spalatin was amazed, on seeing her for the first time in , how much luther resembled her in bearing and features. indeed, a certain likeness is observable between him and her portrait, in the eyes and the lower part of the face. at the same time, from what is known of the appearance of the luthers who lived afterwards at möhra, he must also have resembled his father's family. chapter ii. childhood and schooldays. as to the childhood of martin luther, and his further growth and mental development, at mansfeld and elsewhere, we have absolutely no information from others to enlighten us. for this portion of his life we can only avail ourselves of occasional and isolated remarks of his own, partly met with in his writings, partly culled from his lips by melancthon, or his physician ratzeberger, or his pupil mathesius, or other friends, and by them recorded for the benefit of posterity. these remarks are very imperfect, but are significant enough to enable us to understand the direction which his inner life had taken, and which prepared him for his future calling. nor less significant is the fact that those opponents who, from the commencement of his war with the church, tracked out his origin, and sought therein for evidence to his detriment, have failed, for their part, to contribute anything new whatever to the history of his childhood and youth, although, as the reformer, he had plenty of enemies at his own and his parents' home, and several of the counts of mansfeld, in particular, continued in the romish church. there was nothing, therefore, dark or discreditable, at any rate, to be found attaching either to his home or to his own youth. it is said that childhood is a paradise. luther in after years found it joyful and edifying to contemplate the happiness of those little ones who know neither the cares of daily life nor the troubles of the soul, and enjoy with light hearts the good thing which god has given them. but in his own reminiscences of life, so far as he has given them, no such sunny childhood is reflected. the hard time, which his parents at first had to struggle through at mansfeld, had to be shared in by the children, and the lot fell most hardly on the eldest. as the former spent their days in hard toil, and persevered in it with unflinching severity, the tone of the house was unusually earnest and severe. the upright, honourable, industrious father was honestly resolved to make a useful man of his son, and enable him to rise higher than himself. he strictly maintained at all times his paternal authority. after his death, martin recorded, in touching language, instances of his father's love, and the sweet intercourse he was permitted to have with him. but it is not surprising, if, at the period of childhood, so peculiarly in need of tender affection, the severity of the father was felt rather too much. he was once, as he tells us, so severely flogged by his father that he fled from him, and bore him a temporary grudge. luther, in speaking of the discipline of children, has even quoted his mother as an example of the way in which parents, with the best intentions, are apt to go too far in punishing, and forget to pay due attention to the peculiarities of each child. his mother, he said, once whipped him till the blood came, for having taken a paltry little nut. he adds, that, in punishing children, the apple should be placed beside the rod, and they should not be chastised for an offence about nuts or cherries as if they had broken open a money-box. his parents, he acknowledged, had meant it for the very best, but they had kept him, nevertheless, so strictly that he had become shy and timid. theirs, however, was not that unloving severity which blunts the spirit of a child, and leads to artfulness and deceit. their strictness, well intended, and proceeding from a genuine moral earnestness of purpose, furthered in him a strictness and tenderness of conscience, which then and in after years made him deeply and keenly sensitive of every fault committed in the eyes of god; a sensitiveness, indeed, which, so far from relieving him of fear, made him apprehensive on account of sins that existed only in his imagination. it was a later consequence of this discipline, as luther himself informs us, that he took refuge in a convent. he adds, at the same time, that it is better not to spare the rod with children even from the very cradle, than to let them grow up without any punishment at all; and that it is pure mercy to young folk to bend their wills, even though it costs labour and trouble, and leads to threats and blows. we have a reference by luther to the lessons he learned in childhood from his experience of poverty at home, in his remarks in later life, on the sons of poor men, who by sheer hard work raise themselves from obscurity, and have much to endure, and no time to strut and swagger, but must be humble and learn to be silent and to trust in god, and to whom god also has given good sound heads. as to luther's relations with his brothers and sisters we have the testimony of one who knew the household at mansfeld, and particularly his brother james, that from childhood they were those of brotherly companionship, and that from his mother's own account he had exercised a governing influence both by word and deed on the good conduct of the younger members of the family. his father must have taken him to school at a very early age. long after, in fact only two years before his death, he noted down in the bible of a 'good old friend,' emler, a townsman of mansfeld, his recollection how, more than once, emler, as the elder, had carried him, still a weakly child, to and from school; a proof, not indeed, as a catholic opponent of the next century imagined, that it was necessary to compel the boy to go to school, but that he was still of an age to benefit by being carried. the school-house, of which the lower portion still remains, stood at the upper end of the little town, part of which runs with steep streets up the hill. the children there were taught not only reading and writing, but also the rudiments of latin, though doubtless in a very clumsy and mechanical fashion. from his experience of the teaching here, luther speaks in later years of the vexations and torments with declining and conjugating and other tasks which school children in his youth had to undergo. the severity he there met with from his teacher was a very different thing from the strictness of his parents. schoolmasters, he says, in those days were tyrants and executioners, the schools were prisons and hells, and in spite of blows, trembling, fear, and misery, nothing was ever taught. he had been whipped, he tells us, fifteen times one morning, without any fault of his own, having been called on to repeat what he had never been taught. at this school he remained till he was fourteen, when his father resolved to send him to a better and higher-class place of education. he chose for that purpose magdeburg; but what particular school he attended is not known. his friend mathesius tells us that the town-school there was 'far renowned above many others.' luther himself says that he went to school with the null-brethren. these null-brethren or noll-brethren, as they were called, were a brotherhood of pious clergymen and laymen, who had combined together, but without taking any vows, to promote among themselves the salvation of their souls and the practice of a godly life, and to labour at the same time for the social and moral welfare of the people, by preaching the word of god, by instruction, and by spiritual ministration. they undertook in particular the care of youth. they were, moreover, the chief originators of the great movement in germany, at that time, for promoting intellectual culture, and reviving the treasures of ancient roman and greek literature. since a colony of them had existed at magdeburg, which had come from hildesheim, one of their head-quarters. as there is no evidence of heir having had a school of their own at magdeburg, they may have devoted their services to the town-school. thither, then, hans luther sent his eldest son in . the idea had probably been suggested by peter reinicke, the overseer of the mines, who had a son there. with this son john, who afterwards rose to an important office in the mines at mansfeld, martin luther contracted a lifelong friendship. hans, however, only let his son remain one year at magdeburg, and then sent him to school at eisenach. whether he was induced to make this change by finding his expectations of the school not sufficiently realised, or whether other reasons, possibly those regarding a cheaper maintenance of his son, may have determined him in the matter, there is no evidence to show. what strikes one here only is his zeal for the better education of his son. ratzeberger is the only one who tells us of an incident he heard of luther from his own lips, during his stay at magdeburg, and this was one which, as a physician, he relates with interest. luther, it happened, was lying sick of a burning fever, and tormented with thirst, and in the heat of the fever they refused him drink. so one friday, when the people of the house had gone to church, and left him alone, he, no longer able to endure the thirst, crawled off on hands and feet to the kitchen, where he drank off with great avidity a jug of cold water. he could reach his room again, but having done so he fell into a deep sleep, and on waking the fever had left him. the maintenance his father was able to afford him was not sufficient to cover the expenses of his board and lodging as well as of his schooling, either at magdeburg or afterwards at eisenach. he was obliged to help himself after the manner of poor scholars, who, as he tells us, went about from door to door collecting small gifts or doles by singing hymns. 'i myself,' he says,' was one of those young colts, particularly at eisenach, my beloved town.' he would also ramble about the neighbourhood with his school-fellows; and often, from the pulpit or the lecturer's chair, would he tell little anecdotes about those days. the boys used to sing quartettes at christmas-time in the villages, carols on the birth of the holy child at bethlehem. once, as they were singing before the door of a solitary farmhouse, the farmer came out and called to them roughly, 'where are you, young rascals?' he had two large sausages in his hand for them, but they ran away terrified, till he shouted after them to come back and fetch the sausages. so intimidated, says luther, had he become by the terrors of school discipline. his object, however, in relating this incident was to show his hearers how the heart of man too often construes manifestations of god's goodness and mercy into messages of fear, and how men should pray to god perseveringly, and without timidity or shamefacedness. in those days it was not rare to find even scholars of the better classes, such as the son of a magistrate at mansfeld, and those who, for the sake of a better education, were sent to distant schools, seeking to add to their means in the manner we have mentioned. after this, his father sent him to eisenach, bearing in mind the numerous relatives who lived in the town and surrounding country, and who might be of service to him. but of these no mention has reached us, except of one, named konrad, who was sacristan in the church of st. nicholas. the others, no doubt, were not in a position to give him any material assistance. about this time his singing brought him under the notice of one frau cotta, who with genuine affection took up the promising boy, and whose memory, in connection with the great reformer, still lives in the hearts of the german people. her husband, konrad or kunz, was one of the most influential citizens of the town, and sprang from a noble italian family who had acquired wealth by commerce. ursula cotta, as her name was, belonged to the eisenach family of schalbe. she died in . mathesius tells us how the boy won her heart by his singing and his earnestness in prayer, and she welcomed him to her own table. luther met with similar acts of kindness from a brother or other relative of hers, and also from an institution belonging to franciscan friars at eisenach, which was indebted to the schalbe family for several rich endowments, and was named, in consequence, the schalbe college. at frau cotta's, luther was first introduced to the life in a patrician's house, and learned to move in that society. at eisenach he remained at school for four years. many years afterwards we find him on terms of friendly and grateful intercourse with one father wiegand, who had been his schoolmaster there. ratzeberger, speaking of the then schoolmaster at eisenach, mentions a 'distinguished poet and man of learning, john trebonius,' who, as he tells us, every morning, on entering the schoolroom, would take off his biretta, because god might have chosen many a one of the lads present to be a future mayor, or chancellor, or learned doctor; a thought which, as he adds, was amply realised afterwards in the person of doctor luther. the relations of these two at the school, which contained several classes, must be a matter of conjecture. but the system of teaching pursued there was praised afterwards by luther himself to melancthon. the former acquired there that thorough knowledge of latin which was then the chief preparation for university study. he learned to write it, not only in prose, but also in verse, which leads us to suppose that the school at eisenach took a part in the humanistic movement already mentioned. happily, his active mind and quick understanding had already begun to develop; not only did he make up for lost ground, but he even outstripped those of his own age. as we see him growing up to manhood, the future hero of the faith, the teacher, and the warrior, the most important question for us is the course which his religious development took from childhood. he who, in after years, waged such a tremendous warfare with the church of his time, always gratefully acknowledged, and in his own teaching and conduct kept steadily in view, how, within herself, and underneath all the corruptions he denounced, she still preserved the groundwork of a christian life, the charter of salvation, the fundamental truths of christianity, and the means of redemption and blessing, vouchsafed by the grace of god. especially did he acknowledge all that he had himself received from the church since childhood. in that house, he says on one occasion, he was baptised, and catechised in the christian truth, and for that reason he would always honour it as the house of his father. the church would at any rate take care that children, at home and at school, should learn by heart the apostles' creed, the lord's prayer, and the ten commandments; that they should pray, and sing psalms and christian hymns. printed books, containing them, were already in existence. among the old christian hymns in the german language, of which a surprisingly rich collection has been formed, a certain number, at least, were in common use in the churches, especially for festivals. 'fine songs' luther called them, and he took care that they should live on in the evangelical communities. those old verses form in part the foundation of the hymns which we owe to his own poetical genius. thus for christmas we still have the carol of those times, _ein kindelein so lobelich_; and the first verse of luther's whitsun hymn, _nun bitten wir den heiligen geist_, is taken, he tells us, from one of those old-fashioned melodies. of the portions of scripture read in church, the gospels and epistles were given in the mother-tongue. sermons, also, had long been preached in german, and there were printed collections of them for the use of the clergy. the places where luther grew up were certainly better off in this respect than many others. for, in the main, very much was still wanting to realise what had been recommended and striven for by pious churchmen, and writers and religious fraternities, or even enjoined by the church herself. the reformers had, indeed, a heavy and an irrefutable indictment to bring against the catholic church system of their time. the grossest ignorance and shortcomings were exposed by the visitations which they undertook, and from these we may fairly judge of the actual state of things existing for many years before. it appeared, that even where these portions of the catechism were taught by parents and schoolmasters, they never formed the subject of clerical instruction to the young. it was precisely one of the charges brought against the enemies of the reformation, that, notwithstanding the injunctions of their church, they habitually neglected this instruction, and preferred teaching the children such things as carrying banners in processions and holy tapers. priests were found, in the course of these visitations, who had scarcely any knowledge of the chief articles of the faith. his own personal experience of this neglect, when young, is not noticed by luther in his later complaints on the subject. but the main fault and failing which he recognised in after life, and which, as he tells us, was a source of inward suffering to him from childhood, was the distorted view, held up to him at school and from the pulpit, of the conditions of christian salvation, and, consequently, of his own proper religious attitude and demeanour. luther himself, as we learn from him later life, would have christian children brought up in the happy assurance that god is a loving father, christ a faithful saviour, and that it is their privilege and duty to approach their father with frank and childlike confidence, and, if aroused to a consciousness of sin or wrong, to entreat at once his forgiveness. such however, he tells us, was not what he was taught. on the contrary, he was instructed, and trained up from childhood in that narrowing conception of christianity, and that outward form of religiousness, against which, more than anything, he bore witness as a reformer. god was pictured to him as a being unapproachably sublime, and of awful holiness; christ, the saviour, mediator, and advocate, whose revelation can only bring judgment to those who reject salvation, as the threatening judge, against whose wrath, as against that of god, man sought for intercession and mediation from the virgin and the other saints. this latter worship, towards the close of the middle ages, had increased in importance and extent. peculiar honour was paid to particular saints, in particular places, and for the furtherance of particular interests. the warlike st. george was the special saint of the town and county of mansfeld: his effigy still surmounts the entrance to the old school-house. among the miners the worship of st. anne, the mother of the virgin, soon became popular towards the end of the century, and the mining town of annaberg, built in , was named after her. luther records how the 'great stir' was first made about her, when he was a boy of fifteen, and how he was then anxious to place himself under her protection. there is no lack of religious writings of that time, which, with the view of preserving the catholic faith, warn men earnestly against the danger of overvaluing the saints, and of placing their hopes more in them than in god; but we see from those very warnings how necessary they were, and later history shows us how little fruit they bore. as for luther, certain beautiful features in the lives and legends of the saints exercised over him a power of attraction which he never afterwards renounced; and of the virgin he always spoke with tender reverence, only regretting that men wished to make an idol of her. but of his early religious belief, he says that christ appeared to him as seated on a rainbow, like a stern judge; from christ men turned to the saints, to be their patrons, and called on the virgin to bare her breasts to her son, and dispose him thereby to mercy. an example of what deceptions were sometimes practised in such worship came to the notice of the elector john frederick, the friend of luther, and probably originated in a convent at eisenach. it was a figure, carved in wood, of the virgin with the infant saviour in her arms, which was furnished with a secret contrivance by means of which the child, when the people prayed to him, first turned away to his mother, and only when they had invoked her as intercessor, bowed towards them with his little arms outstretched. on the other hand, the sinner who was troubled with cares about his soul and thoughts of divine judgment, found himself directed to the performance of particular acts of penance and pious exercises, as the means to appease a righteous god. he received judgment and commands through the church at the confessional. the reformers themselves, and luther especially, fully recognised the value of being able to pour out the inner temptations of the heart to some christian father-confessor, or even to some other brother in the faith, and to obtain from his lips that comfort of forgiveness which god, in his love and mercy, bestows freely on the faithful. but nothing of this kind, they said, was to be found in the confessional. the conscience was tormented with the enumeration of single sins, and burdened with all sorts of penitential formalities; and it was just with a view that everyone should be drawn to this discipline of the church, should use it regularly, and should seek for no other way to make his peace with god, that the educational activity of the church, both with young and old, was especially directed. luther, in after life, as we have already remarked, always recognised and found comfort in the fact that, even under such conditions as the above, enough of the simple message of salvation in the bible could penetrate the heart, and awaken a faith which, in spite of all artificial restraints and perplexing dogmas, should throw itself, with inward longing and childlike trust, into the arms of god's mercy, and so enjoy true forgiveness. he received, as we shall see, some salutary directions for so doing from later friends of his, who belonged to the romish church, nor was that character of ecclesiastical religiousness, so to speak, stamped everywhere, or to the same degree, on christian life in germany during his youth. nevertheless, his whole inner being, from boyhood, was dominated by its influence; he, at all events, had never been taught to appreciate the gospel as a child. looking back in later years on his monastic days, and the whole of his previous life, he declared that he never could feel assured that his baptism in christ was sufficient for his salvation, and that he was sorely troubled with doubt whether any piety of his own would be able to secure for him god's mercy. thoughts of this kind he said induced him to become a monk. men have never been wanting, either before or since the time of luther's youth, to denounce the abuses and corruptions of the church, and particularly of the clergy. language of this sort had long found its way to the popular ear, and had proceeded also from the people themselves. complaints were made of the tyranny of the papal hierarchy, and of their encroachments on social and civil life, as well as of the worldliness and gross immorality of the priests and monks. the papacy had reached its lowest depth of moral degradation under pope alexander vi. we hear nothing, however, of the impressions produced on luther, in this respect, in the circumstances of his early life. the news of such scandals as were then enacted at rome, shamelessly and in open day, very likely took a long while to reach luther and those about him. with regard to the carnal offences of the clergy, against which, to the honour of germany be it said, the german conscience especially revolted, he made afterwards the noteworthy remark, that although during his boyhood the priests allowed themselves mistresses, they never incurred the suspicion of anything like unbridled sensuality or adulterous conduct. examples of such kind date only from a later period. the loyalty with which mansfeld, his home, adhered to the ancient church, is shown by several foundations of that time, all of which have reference to altars and the celebration of mass. the overseer of the mines, reinicke, the friend of luther's family, is among the founders: he left provision for keeping up services in honour of the virgin and st. george. a peculiarly reverential demeanour, in regard to religion and the church, is observable in luther's father, and one which was common no doubt among his honest, simple, pious fellow townsfolk. his conduct was consistently god-fearing. in his house it was afterwards told how he would often pray at the bedside of his little martin,--how, as the friend of godliness and learning, he had enjoyed the friendship of priests and school-teachers. words of pious reflection from his lips remained stamped on luther's memory from his boyhood. thus luther tells us, in a sermon preached towards the close of his life, how he had often heard his dear father say, that, as his own parents had told him, the earth contains many more who require to be fed than there are sheaves, even if collected from all the fields in the world; and yet how wondrously does god know how to preserve mankind! in common with his fellow-townsmen, he followed the precepts and commands of his church. when, in the year in which he sent his son to magdeburg, two new altars in the church at mansfeld were consecrated to a number of saints, and sixty days' indulgence was granted to anyone who heard mass at them, hans luther, with reinicke and other fellow-magistrates, was among the first to make use of the invitation. the enemies of the reformer, while fain to trace his origin to a heretic bohemian, had not a shadow of a reason for suspecting his real father of any leanings to heresy. nor do we hear a word in later years from the reformer, after his father had separated with him from the catholic church, to show a trace of any hostile or critical remark against that church, remembered from the lips of his father during childhood. quietly but firmly the latter asserted his own judgment, and framed his will accordingly. he was firm, in particular, in the consciousness of his paternal rights and duties, even against the pretensions of the clergy. thus, as his son martin tells us, when he lay once on the point of death, and the priest admonished him to leave something to the clergy, he replied in the simplicity of his heart, 'i have many children: i will leave it them, for they want it more.' we shall see how unyieldingly, when his son entered a convent, he insisted, as against all the value and usefulness of monasticism, on the paramount obligation of god's command, that children should obey their parents. luther also tells us how his father once praised in high terms the will left by a count of mansfeld, who without leaving any property to the church, was content to depart from this world trusting solely to the bitter sufferings and death of christ, and commending his soul to him. luther himself, when a young student, would have considered, as he tells us, a bequest to churches or convents a proper will to make. his father afterwards accepted his son's doctrine of salvation without hesitation, and with the full conviction that it was right. but remarks of his such as we have quoted, were consistent with a perfectly blameless demeanour in regard to the forms of conduct and belief as prescribed by the church, with an avoidance of criticism and argument on ecclesiastical matters, which he knew were not his vocation, and above all with a complete abstention from such talk in the presence of his children. as to what concerns further the positive religious influence which he exercised over his children, any such impressions as he might have given by what he said of the count of mansfeld, were fully counterbalanced by the severity and firmness of his paternal discipline. concurrent with the doctrine of salvation through the intercession of the saints and the church, and one's own good works, which luther had been taught from his youth, were the dark popular ideas of the power of the devil--ideas, which, though not actually invented, were at least patronised by the church, and which not only threaten the souls of men, but cast a baneful spell over all their natural life. luther, as is well known, has frequently expressed his own opinions about the devil, in connection with the enchantments supposed to be practised by the evil one on mankind, and, more especially, on the subject of witchcraft. of one thing he was certain, that in god's hand we are safe from the evil one, and can triumph over him. but even he believed the devil's work was manifested in sudden accidents and striking phenomena of nature, in storms, conflagrations, and the like. as to the tales of sorcery and magic, which were told and believed in by the people, some he declared to be incredible, others he ascribed to the hallucinations effected by the devil. but that witches had power to do one bodily harm, that they plagued children in particular, and that their spells could affect the soul, he never seriously doubted. from his earliest childhood, and especially at home, ideas of that kind had been instilled into luther, and accordingly they ministered strong food to his imagination. they had just then spread to a remarkable extent among the germans, and had developed in remarkable ways. they had affected the administration of ecclesiastical and civil law, they had given rise to the inquisition and the most barbarous cruelties in the punishment of those who were pretended to be in league with the devil, and they had gradually multiplied their baneful effects. the year after luther's birth, appeared the remarkable papal bull which sanctioned the trial of witches. when a boy, luther heard a great deal about witches, though later in life he thought there was no longer so much talk about them, and he would not scruple to tell stories of how they harmed men and cattle, and brought down storms and hail. nay, of his own mother he believed that she had suffered much from the witcheries of a female neighbour, who, as he said, 'plagued her children till they nearly screamed themselves to death.' delusions such as these are certainly dark shadows in the picture of luther's youth, and are important towards understanding his inner life as a man. but while admitting the existence of these superstitious and pseudo-religious notions, we must not imagine that they composed the whole portraiture of luther's early life. he was, as mathesius describes him, a merry, jovial young fellow. in his later reflections on himself and his youthful days, the very war he was waging against the false teachings of the church, from which he himself had suffered, made him dwell, as was natural, on this side of his early life. but amidst all those trials and depressing influences, the fresh and elastic vigour of his nature stood the strain--a vigour innate and inherited, and which afterwards shone forth in a new and brighter light, under a new aspect of religious life. his childlike joy in nature around him, which afterwards distinguished so remarkably the theologian and champion of the faith, must be referred back to his original bent of mind and his life, when a boy, amid nature's surroundings. how much he lived, from childhood, with the peasantry, is shown by the natural ease with which he spoke in the popular dialect, even when he was learning latin and enjoying a higher culture, and by the frequency with which the native roughnesses of that dialect broke out in his learned discourses or sermons. in no other theologian, nay, in no other known german writer of his century, do we meet with so many popular proverbs as in luther, to whom they came naturally in his conversations and letters. german legends also, and popular tales, such as the history of dietrich von bern and other heroes, or of eulenspiegel or markolf, would hardly have been remembered so accurately by him in later years, if he had not familiarised himself with them in childhood. he would at times inveigh against the worthless, and even shameless tales and 'gossip,' as he called it, which such books contained, and especially against the priests who used to spice their sermons with such stories; but that he also recognised their value we know from his allusion to 'some people, who had written songs about dietrich and other giants, and in so doing had expounded much greater subjects in a short and simple manner.' the pleasure with which he himself may have read or listened to them, can be gathered from his remark that 'when a story of dietrich von bern is told, one is bound to remember it afterwards, even though one has only heard it once.' he maintained through life a faithful devotion to the places where he had grown up. eisenach remained, as we have already seen, his beloved town. mansfeld was particularly dear to him as his home, and the whole county as his 'fatherland;' he calls it with pride a 'noble and famous county.' the miners also, who were his fellow-countrymen and his dear father's work-mates, he loved all his life long. but a wider horizon was not opened to him among the people of the little town of mansfeld, or where he afterwards went to school. to this fact, and to his quiet life as a monk, we must ascribe the peculiar feature of his later activity, namely, that while prosecuting with far-seeing eye and a warm heart the highest and most extensive tasks for his church and for the german people in general, still, at the beginning of his work and campaign, he understood but little of the great world outside, and of politics, or even of the general state of germany; nay, he shows at times a touchingly childlike simplicity in these matters. the last few years of his school-life enabled him to make brave progress on the road to intellectual culture, which his father wished him to pursue. thus equipped, he was prepared at the age of eighteen, to remove, in the summer of to the university at erfurt. chapter iii. student-days at erfurt and entry into the convent. - . among the german universities, that of erfurt, which could count already a hundred years of prosperous existence, occupied at this time a brilliant position. so high, luther tells us, was its standing and reputation, that all its sister institutions were regarded as mere pigmies by its side. his parents could now afford to give him the necessary means for studying at such a place. 'my dear father,' he says, 'maintained me there with loyal affection, and by his labour and the sweat of his brow enabled me to go there.' he had now begun to feel a burning thirst for learning, and here, at the 'fountain of all knowledge,' to use melancthon's words, he hoped to be able to quench it. he began with a complete course of philosophy, as that science was then understood. it dealt, in the first place, with the laws and forms of thought and knowledge, with language, in which latin formed the basis, or with grammar and rhetoric, as also with the highest problems and most abstruse questions of physics, and comprised even a general knowledge of natural science and astronomy. a complete study of all these subjects was not merely requisite for learned theologians, but frequently served as an introduction to that of law, and even of medicine. when luther first came from eisenach to erfurt, there was nothing yet about him that attracted the attention of others so far as to call forth any contemporary account of him. enough, however, is known of the most eminent teachers there, at whose feet he sat, and also of the general kind of intellectual food which they administered. he gained entrance into a circle of older and younger men than himself, teachers and fellow-students, who in later years, either as friends or opponents, were able to bear witness, favourably or the reverse, as to his life and work at erfurt. the leading professor of philosophy at erfurt was then jodocus trutvetter, who, three years after luther's arrival, became also doctor of theology and lecturer of the theological faculty. next to him, in this department, ranked bartholomew arnoldi of usingen. it was to these two men above others, and particularly to the former, that luther looked for his instruction. the philosophy which was then in vogue at erfurt, and which found its most vigorous champion in trutvetter, was that of the scholasticism of later days. it is common to associate with the idea of scholasticism, or the theological and philosophical school-science of the middle ages, a system of thought and instruction, embracing, indeed, the highest questions of knowledge and existence, but at the same time not venturing to strike into any independent paths, or to deviate an inch from tradition, but submitting rather, in everything connected, or supposed to be connected, with religious belief, to the dogmas and decrees of the church and the authority of the early fathers, and wasting the understanding and intellect in dry formalism or subtle but barren controversies. this conception fails to appreciate the vast labour of thought bestowed by leading minds on the attempt to unravel the mass of ecclesiastical teaching which had twined round the innermost lives of themselves and their fellow-christians, and at the same time to follow those general questions under the guidance of the old philosophers, especially aristotle, of whom they knew but little. but it is applicable, at any rate, to the scholasticism of later days. the confidence with which its older exponents had thought to explain and establish orthodoxy by means of their favourite science, was gone; all the more, therefore, should that science keep silence in face of the commands of the church. men, moreover, had grown tired of the old questions of philosophy about the reality and real existence of universals. it had been formerly a question of dispute whether our general ideas had a real existence, or whether they were nothing more than words or names, mere abstractions, comprehending the individual, which alone was supposed to possess reality. at that time the latter doctrine, that of nominalism, as it was called, prevailed. at length, these new or 'modern' philosophers abandoned the question of realism, and the relation of thought to reality, in favour of a system of pure logic or dialectics, dealing with the mere forms and expressions of thought, the formal analysis of ideas and words, the mutual relation of propositions and conclusions--in short, all that constitutes what we call formal logic, in its widest acceptation. at this point, the far-famed scholastic intellect, with its subtleties, its fine distinctions, its nice questions, its sophistical conclusions, reached its zenith. to this logic trutvetter also devoted himself, and in it he taught his pupils. he had just then published a series of treatises on the subject. to him this study was real earnest. compared with others, he has shown in these excursions a cautious and discreet moderation, and no inclination for the quarrels and verbal combats often dear to logicians. the same can be said of his colleague usingen. trutvetter has shown also that he enjoyed and was widely read in earlier and modern, especially, of course, in scholastic literature, including the works not only of the most important, but also of very obscure authors. we can imagine what delight he took in all this when in his professor's chair, and how much he expected from his pupils. at erfurt meanwhile, and by this same philosophical facility, a fresh and vigorous impulse was being given to that study of classical antiquity, which gave birth to a new learning, and ushered in a new era of intellectual culture in germany. we have already had occasion to refer to the movement and influence of humanism at the schools which luther attended at magdeburg and eisenach. he now found himself at one of the chief nurseries of these 'arts and letters' in germany, nay, at the very place where their richest blossoms were unfolded. erfurt could boast of having issued the first greek book printed in germany in greek type, namely, a grammar, printed in luther's first year at the university. it was the greek and latin poets, in particular, whose writings stirred the enthusiasm and emulation of the students. for refined expression and learned intercourse, the fluent and elegant latin language was studied, as given in the works of classical writers. but far more important still was the free movement of thought, and the new world of ideas thus opened up. in proportion as these young disciples of antiquity learned to despise the barbarous latin and insipidity of the monkish and scholastic education of the day, they began to revolt against scholasticism, against the dogmas of faith propounded by the church, and even against the religious opinions of christendom in general. history shows us the different paths taken, in this respect, by the humanists; and we shall come across them, in another way, during the career of the reformer, as having an important influence on the course of the reformation. with many, an honest striving after religion and morality allied itself with the impulse for independent intellectual culture, and tried to utilise it for improving the condition of the church. when the struggle of the reformation began, some followed luther and the other religious teachers on his side, some, shrinking back from his trenchant conclusions, and, above all, concerned for their own stock-in-trade of learning, counselled others to practise prudence and moderation, and themselves retired to the service of their muses. others again, broke away altogether from the christian faith and the principles of christian morality. they took delight in a new life of heathenism, devoted sometimes to sensual pleasures and gross immoralities, sometimes to the indulgence of refined tastes and the enjoyment of art. these latter never raised a weapon against the church, but for the most part accommodated themselves to her forms. in her teachings, her ordinances, and her discipline, they saw something indispensable to the multitude, as whose conscious superiors they behaved. indeed, they themselves wielded this government in the church, and comfortably enjoyed their authority and its fruits. in italy, at rome, and on the papal chair these despotic pretensions were then asserted without shame or reserve. in germany, on the other hand, the leading champions of the new learning, even when in open arms against the barbarism of the monks and clergy, sought, for themselves and their disciples, to remain faithful on the ground of their mother church. at erfurt, in particular, the relations between them and the representatives of scholasticism were peaceful, unconstrained, and friendly. the dry writings of a trutvetter they prefaced with panegyrics in latin verse, and the trutvetter would try to imitate their purer style. some talented young students of the classics at erfurt formed themselves into a small coterie of their own. they enjoyed the cheerful pleasures of youthful society, nor were poetry and wine wanting, but the rules of decorum and good manners were not overlooked. several men, whom we shall come across afterwards in the history of luther, belonged to this circle;--for instance, john jager, known as crotus eubianus, the friend of ulrich hutten, and george spalatin (properly burkhard), the trusted fellow-labourer of the reformer. both had already been three years at the university when luther entered it. three years after his arrival, came eoban hess, the most brilliant, talented, and amiable of the young humanists and poets of germany. such was the learned company to which luther was introduced in the philosophical faculty at erfurt. so far, different avenues of intellectual culture were opened to him. he threw himself into the study of that philosophy in all its bearings, and, not content with exploring the tangled and thorny paths of logic, took counsel how to enjoy, as far as possible, the fruits of the newly-revived knowledge of antiquity. as regards the latter, he carried the study of ovid, virgil, and cicero, in particular, farther than was customary with the professed students of humanism, and the same with the poetical works of more modern latin writers. but his chief aim was not so much to master the mere language of the classical authors, or to mould himself according to their form, as to cull from their pages rich apophthegms of human wisdom, and pictures of human life and of the history of peoples. he learned to express pregnant and powerful thoughts clearly and vigorously in learned latin, but he was himself well aware how much his language was wanting in the elegance, refinement, and charm of the new school; indeed, this elegance he never attempted to attain. with the members of this circle of young humanists, luther was on terms of personal friendship. crotus was able to remind him in after life how, in close intimacy, they had studied the fine arts together at the university. but there is no mention of him in the numerous letters and poems left to posterity by the aspiring humanists at erfurt. he had made himself, crotus adds, a name among his companions as the 'learned philosopher' and the 'musician,' but he never belonged to the 'poets,' which was the favourite title of the young humanists. many, including even melancthon, have lamented that he was not more deeply imbued with the spirit of those 'noble arts and letters,' which educate the mind, and would have tended to soften his rugged nature and manner. but they would have been of little value to him for the quick decision and energy required for the war he had afterwards to wage. those intellectual treasures and enjoyments kept aloof not only from such contests, but also from sharp and searching investigations of the highest questions of religion and morality, and from the inward struggle, so often painful, which they bring. as regards the merits of humanism, which luther again, as a reformer, eagerly acknowledged, we must not forget how selfishly it withdrew itself from contact and communion with german popular life, nor how it helped to create an exclusive aristocracy of intellect, and allowed the noblest talents to become as clumsy in their own natural mother-tongue, as they were clever in the handling of foreign, acquired forms of art. luther, in not yielding further to those influences, remained a german. philosophy, then, engrossed him, and allowed him but little time for other things. and in studying this, he sought to grapple with the highest problems of the human understanding. these problems occupied also the labours of the later scholastics, however faulty were the forms in which they clothed their ideas. at the same time, these very forms attracted him, from the scope they gave to the exercise of his natural acuteness and understanding. disputation was his great delight; and argumentative contests were then in fashion at the universities. but in after years, as soon as the contents of the bible were opened to his inner understanding, and he recognised in its pages the object of real theological knowledge, he regretted the time and labour which he had wasted on those studies, and even spoke of them with disgust. crotus has already told us of the sociable life that luther led with his friends. the love for music, which he had shown in school-days, he continued to keep up, and indulged in it merrily with his fellow-students. he had a high-pitched voice, not strong, but audible at a distance. besides singing, he learned also to play the lute, and this without a master, and he employed his time in this way when laid up once by an accident to his leg. such rapid progress did he make in his philosophical studies, that in his third term he was able to attain his baccalaureate, the first academical degree of the theological faculty. this degree, according to the general custom of the universities, preceded that of master, corresponding to the present doctor, of philosophy. the examination for it, which luther passed on michaelmas day , professed to include the most important subjects in the province of philosophy. but it could not have been very severe. the chief work came when he took his next degree as master, which was at the beginning of . he then experienced what afterwards, speaking of erfurt's former glory, he thus describes: 'what a moment of majesty and splendour was that, when one took the degree of master, and torches were carried before, and honour was paid one. i consider that no temporal or worldly joy can equal it.' melancthon tells us, on the authority of several of luther's fellow-students, that his talent was then the wonder of the whole university. in accordance with the wish of his father and the advice of his relations, he was now to fit himself for a lawyer. in this profession, they thought, he would be able to turn his talents to the best account, and make a name in the world. and in this department also, the university of erfurt could boast of one of the most distinguished men of learning of that time, henning goede, who was now in the prime of his vigour. luther, accordingly, began to attend the lectures on law, and his father allowed him to buy some valuable books for that purpose, particularly a 'corpus juris.' meanwhile, however, in his inner religious life a change was being prepared, which proved the turning-point of his career. luther himself, as we have seen, frequently pointed out in after life the influences which, even from childhood, under the discipline of home, the experiences of school, and the teaching of the church, combined to bring about this result. he could never shake off for any length of time, even when in the midst of learned study or the enjoyment of student life, the consciousness that he must be pious and satisfy all the strict commands of god, that he must make good all the shortcomings of his life, and reconcile himself with heaven, and that an angry judge was throned above who threatened him with damnation. inner voices of this kind, in a man of sensitive and tender conscience, were bound to assert themselves the more loudly and earnestly, as, in his progress from youth to manhood, he realised more fully his personal responsibility to god, and also his personal independence. to religious observances, in which he had been trained from childhood, luther, as a student, remained faithful. regularly he began his day with prayer, and as regularly attended mass. but of any new or comforting means of access to god and salvation, he heard nothing, even here. in the town of erfurt there was an earnest and powerful preacher, named sebastian weinmann, who denounced in incisive language the prevalent vices of the day, and exposed the corruption of ecclesiastical life, and whom the students thronged to hear. but even he had nothing to offer to satisfy luther's inward cravings of the soul. it was an episode in his life when he once found a latin bible in the library of the university. though then nearly twenty years of age, he had never yet seen a bible. now for the first time he saw how much more it contained than was ever read out and explained in the churches. with delight he perused the story of samuel and his mother, on the first pages that met his eye; though, as yet, he could make nothing more out of the sacred book. it was not on account of any particular offences, such as youthful excesses, that luther feared the wrath of god. staunch catholics at erfurt, including even later avowed enemies of the reformer, who knew him there as a student, have never hinted at anything of that sort against him. 'the more we wash our hands, the fouler they become,' was a favourite saying of luther's. he referred, no doubt, to the numerous faults in thought, word, and deed, which, in spite of human carefulness, every day brings, and which, however insignificant they might seem to others, his conscience told him were sins against god's holy law. disquieting questions, moreover, now arose in his mind, so sorely troubled with temptation; and his subtle and penetrating intellect, so far from being able to solve them, only plunged him deeper in distress. was it then really god's own will, he asked himself, that he should become actually purged from sin and thereby be saved? was not the way to hell or the way to heaven already fixed for him immutably in god's will and decree, by which everything is determined and preordained? and did not the very futility of his own endeavours hitherto prove that it was the former fate that hung over him? he was in danger of going utterly astray in his conception of such a god. expressions in the bible such as those which speak of serving him with fear became to him intolerable and hateful. he was seized at times with fits of despair such as might have tempted him to blaspheme god. it was this that he afterwards referred to as the greatest temptation he had experienced when young. his physical condition probably contributed to this gloomy frame of mind. already during his baccalaureate we hear of an illness of his, which awakened in him thoughts of death. a friend, represented by later tradition as an aged priest, said to him on his sick bed, 'take courage; god will yet make you the means of comfort to many others;' and these words impressed him strongly even then. an accident also, which threatened to be fatal, must have tended to alarm him. as he was travelling home at easter, and was within an hour's distance of erfurt, he accidentally injured the main artery of his leg with the rapier which, like other students, he carried at his side. whilst a friend who was with him had gone for a doctor, and he was left alone, he pressed the wound tightly as he lay on his back, but the leg continued to swell. in the anguish of death he called upon the virgin to help him. that night his terror was renewed when the wound broke open afresh, and again he invoked the mother of god. it was during his convalescence after this accident that he resolved upon learning to play the lute. he was terribly distressed also, a few months after he had taken his degree as master, by the sudden death of one of his friends, not further known to us, who was either assassinated or snatched away by some other fatality. well might the thought even then have occurred to him, while so disturbed in his mind and overpowered by feelings of sadness, whether it would not be better to seek his cure in the monastic holiness recommended by the church, and to renounce altogether the world and all the success he had hitherto aspired to. the young master of arts, as he tells us himself in later years, was indeed a sorrowful man. suddenly and offhand he was hurried into a most momentous decision. towards the end of june , when several church festivals fall together, he paid a visit to his home at mansfeld, in quest, very possibly, of rest and comfort to his mind. returning on july , the feast of the visitation of the virgin mary, he was already near erfurt, when, at the village of stotternheim a terrific storm broke over his head. a fearful flash of lightning darted from heaven before his eyes. trembling with fear, he fell to the earth, and exclaimed, 'help, anna, beloved saint! i will be a monk.' a few days after, when quietly settled again at erfurt, he repented having used these words. but he felt that he had taken a vow, and that, on the strength of that vow, he had obtained a hearing. the time, he knew, was past for doubt or indecision. nor did he think it necessary to get his father's consent; his own conviction and the teaching of the church told him that no objection on the part of his father could release him from his vow. thus he severed himself at once from his former life and companions. on july he called his best friends together to bid them leave. once more they tried to keep him back; he answered them, 'to-day you see me, and never again.' the next day, that of st. alexius, they accompanied him with tears to the gates of the augustinian convent in the town, which he thought was to receive him for ever. it is chiefly from what luther himself has told us that we are enabled to picture to ourselves this remarkable occurrence. rumour, and rumour only, has given the name of alexius to that unknown friend whose death so terrified him, and has represented this friend as having been struck dead by lightning at his side. the luther of later days declared that his monastic vow was a compulsory one, forced from him by terror and the fear of death. but, at the same time, he never doubted that it was god who urged him. thus he said afterwards, 'i never thought to leave again the convent. i was entirely dead to the world, until god thought that the time had come.' part ii. _luther as monk and professor, until his entry on the war of reformation-- - ._ chapter i. at the content at erfurt, till . luther's resolve to follow a monastic life was arrived at suddenly, as we have seen. but he weighed that resolve well in his mind, and just as carefully considered the choice of the convent which he entered. the augustinian monks, whose society he announced his intention to join, belonged at that time to the most important monastic order in germany. so much had already been said with justice, in the way of complaint and ridicule, of the depravation of monastic life, its idleness, hypocrisy, and gross immorality, that many of them fancied that the solemn renunciation of marriage and the world's goods, and the absolute submission of their wills to the commands of their superiors and the regulations of their order, constituted true service to god, and raised them to a peculiar position of holiness and merit. outward discipline, at all events, was universally insisted on. among the german institutions of this order, whilst neglect and depravity had crept in elsewhere, a large number had, for some time past, distinguished themselves by a strict adherence to their old statutes, originating, it was supposed, from their founder st. augustine, but relating, at the best, to mere matters of form. these institutions formed themselves into an association, presided over by a vicar of the order, as he was called, a vicar-general for germany. to this association belonged the convent at erfurt. its inmates were treated with marked favour and respect by the higher and educated classes in the town. they were said to be active in preaching and in the care of souls, and to cultivate among themselves the study of theology. arnoldi, luther's teacher, belonged to this convent. as the order possessed no property, but all its members lived on alms, the monks went about the town and country to collect gifts of money, bread, cheese, and other victuals. according to the rules of the order, applications for admission were not granted at once, but time was taken to see whether the applicant was in earnest. after that he was received as a novice for at least a year of probation. until that year expired he was at liberty to reconsider his wish. luther, before taking this final step, thought of his parents, with a view to lay before them his resolve. the monastic brethren, however, endeavoured to dissuade him, by reminding him how one must leave father and mother for christ and his cross, and how no one who has put his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of god. upon his writing to his father on the subject, the latter, strong in the conviction of his paternal rights, flew into a passion with his son. 'my father,' says luther later, 'was near going mad about it; he was ill satisfied, and would not allow it. he sent me an answer in writing, addressing me in terms that showed his displeasure, and renouncing all further affection. soon after he lost two of his sons by the plague. this epidemic had likewise broken out so violently at erfurt, that about harvesttime whole crowds of students fled with their teachers from the town, and luther's father received news that his son martin had also fallen a victim. his friends then urged him that, if the report proved false, he ought at least to devote his dearest to god, by letting this son who still remained to him, enter the blessed order of god's servants. at last the father let himself be talked over; but he yielded, as luther informs us, with a sad and reluctant heart. the young novice was welcomed among his brethren with hymns of joy, and prayers, and other ceremonies. he was soon clothed in the garb of his order. over a white woollen shirt he was made to wear a frock and cowl of black cloth, with a black leathern girdle. whenever he put these on or off a latin prayer was repeated to him aloud, that the lord might put off the old and put on the new man, fashioned according to god. above the cowl he received a scapulary, as it was called--in other words, a narrow strip of cloth hanging over shoulders, breast, and back, and reaching down to his feet. this was meant to signify that he took upon him the yoke of him who said, 'my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.' at the same time, he was handed over to a superior, appointed to take charge of the novices, to introduce them to the practices of monastic devotion, to superintend their conduct, and to watch over their souls. above all, it was held important that the monks should be taught to subdue their own wills. they had to learn to endure, without opposition, whatever was imposed upon them, and that, indeed, all the more cheerfully, the more distasteful it appeared. any tendency to pride was overcome by enjoining immediately the most menial offices on the offender. friends of luther tell us how, during his first period of probation in particular, he had to perform the meanest daily labour with brush and broom, and how his jealous brethren took particular pleasure in seeing the proud young graduate of yesterday trudge through the streets, with his beggar's wallet on his back, by the side of another monk more accustomed to the work. at first, we are told, the university interceded on his behalf as a member of their own body, and obtained for him at least some relaxation from his menial duties. from luther's own lips, in after life, we hear not a word of complaint about any special vexations and burdens. as far as was possible, he did not allow them to daunt him; nay, he longed for even severer exercises, to enable him to win the favour of god. even as a reformer he remembered with gratitude the 'pedagogue,' or superintendent of his noviciate; he was a fine old man, he tells us, a true christian under that execrable cowl. the novice found each day, as it went by, fully occupied with the repetition of set prayers and the performance of other acts of devotion. for the day and night together there were seven or eight appointed hours of prayer, or _horae_. during each of these the brethren who were not yet priests had to say twenty-five paternosters with the ave maria, more ample formulas of prayer being prescribed meanwhile to the priests. luther was also introduced already then to certain theological studies, which were under the supervision of two learned fathers of the monastery. but what was of the most importance for him was that a bible--the latin translation then in general use in the church--was put into his hands. just about this time, a new code of statutes had come in force for these augustinian convents, drawn up by staupitz, the vicar of the order, which enjoined, as matters of duty, assiduous reading, devout attention to the hours, and a zealous study of holy writ. teachers were wanting to luther, and he found it very difficult to understand all he read. but with genuine appetite he read himself, so to speak, into his bible, and clung to it ever afterwards. at the end of his year of probation followed his solemn admission to the order. faithfully 'unto death' did luther then promise to live according to the rules of the holy father augustine, and to render obedience to almighty god, to the virgin mary, and to the prior of the monastery. before doing so, he put on anew the dress of his order, which had been consecrated with holy water and incense. the prior received his vows and sprinkled holy water upon him as he prostrated himself upon the ground in the form of a cross. when the ceremony was over, his brethren congratulated him on being now like an innocent child fresh from the baptism. he was then given a cell of his own, with table, bedstead, and chair. it looked out upon the cloistered yard of the monastery. it was destroyed by a fire on march , . [illustration: fig. .--luther's cell at erfurt.] luther now, by an inviolable promise, had bound himself to that vocation through which he aspired to gain heaven. the means whereby he hoped to realise his aspiration were abundantly provided for him in his new home. if he sought the favour of the virgin and of other saints who should intercede for him before the judgment-seat of god and christ, he found at once in his order a fervent worship of the virgin in particular, and all possible directions for her service. the doctrine of the immaculate conception, which pius ix., in our own days, first ventured to raise into a dogma of the church, was zealously defended by the augustinians, and firmly maintained by luther himself, even after the beginning of his war of reformation. john palz, one of his two theological teachers in the convent, wrote profusely in honour of this doctrine, and described all christians as its spiritual children. under its mantle, says luther, he had to creep into the presence of christ. from the multitude of other saints luther selected a number as his constant helpers in need. we notice particularly that among these, in addition to st. anne and st. george, was the apostle thomas; from him who himself had once betrayed such cowardice and want of faith he might well hope for peculiar sympathy. we have already mentioned the set prayers which filled up a great portion of the day. he was required above all things to learn and repeat them accurately, word by word. afterwards, as he tells us, the _horae_ were read aloud after the manner of magpies, jackdaws, or parrots. if he wished in penitence to be freed from the sins which had tormented him so long, and were a daily burden on his conscience, the means of confession provided by the church were always ready for him in the convent. once a week, at the least, every brother had to attend the private confessional. all his sins, without exception, had then to be revealed, if he wished to obtain for them forgiveness. luther endeavoured to unbosom to his father-confessor all he had done from his youth up; but this was too much even for the priest. it was by means of a complete inward contrition, corresponding to the infinite burden of sin, that the person confessing was to make himself worthy of the forgiveness which the priest then testified to him by absolution. according to the prevailing doctrine, however, what was wanting to the penitent in completeness of contrition, was supplied by the sacrament of absolution. but the punishments reserved by god for sinners were not supposed to be ended by this absolution or forgiveness; these had to be atoned for by peculiar observances, imposed by the priest, and by prayer, alms, fasting, and other acts of mortification. for him who was not forgiven, remained hell; for him who had not expiated his sins, at least the fear and pains of purgatory. such was and still is the teaching of the catholic church. thus luther was now summoned and directed to pursue methodically the painful work of self-examination, which had oppressed him even before he entered the convent, and to use all the means of grace here offered to him. but the more he searched into his life and thoughts, the more transgressions of god's will he found, and the more grievously did they afflict his conscience. it was not, indeed, as might have been imagined with a strong young man like himself, a question of any sensual appetites, stimulated all the more by the restraints of the convent. it was with the passions of anger, hatred, and envy against his brethren and fellow-creatures, that he had to reproach himself. those who disliked him accused him in particular of self-conceit, and of letting his temper break out too easily. faults of that description, in thought, word, or deed, were to his own conscience as deadly sins, though to the priest who listened to him at confession, they seemed too trifling to call for enumeration. to these were added a number of smaller offences against the ordinances of the church and the convent, with reference to outward observances and forms of worship, prayers, and so on, all of which, insignificant as they must seem to us, the church was accustomed to treat as grievous sins. finally, there arose in his mind a constant restlessness, which made him look for sins where none in reality existed. what he had said once before about washing one's hands, that it only made them become fouler, he had now to experience for himself. his contrition made him feel pain and fear in abundance, but not so as to enable him to say to himself that it purged the evil in the sight of god. absolution was pronounced over him again and again, but who ever gave him any assurance that he had fulfilled its conditions, and therefore could really confide in its efficacy? as for acts of penance, he willingly performed them, and, indeed, did far more in the way of prayer, fasting, and vigil than either the rules of the convent demanded or his father-confessor enjoined. his body, from his hardy training as a child, was well prepared for such austerities, but in spite of that, he had for a long while to suffer from their results. luther, in later years, could well bear witness of himself that he had caused his own body far more pain and torture with those practices of penance than all his enemies and persecutors had caused to theirs. what leisure remained, after his other monastic duties were over, he devoted most industriously to the study of theology. he read, in particular, the writings of the later scholastic theologians, with whom he had partly occupied himself during his philosophical course. of some of these, such as the englishman occam, in particular, whose acuteness of reasoning he especially admired, there were writings which, in reference to questions of external church polity, might have led him even then into paths of his own, if his mind had been disposed for it. these writings were directed against the absolute power of the pope in the church, and against his aggressions in the territory of empire and state. but any such aim was very far removed from the monastic order to which luther had devoted himself, and from the theologians who were here his teachers. palz, whom we have mentioned already, had especially distinguished himself by his glorification of the papal indulgences. moreover, the whole order, and the german convents belonging to it in particular, were indebted to the pope for various acts of favour. nor was luther himself less careful to hold firmly to the ordinances of the hierarchy, than to avail himself of the means of salvation offered by the church. what at all times in his theological studies enlisted his warmest personal interest was the difficult question, how sinners could obtain everlasting salvation. and all that he came to read on that subject in the writings of those theologians, and to hear from his learned teachers in the convent, served only to increase his fruitless inward wrestlings, and his anxiety and sense of need. the great father of the church, from whom his order was named, and to whom their rules were ascribed, had once, on the ground of his own experiences of the struggle with sin and the flesh, laid down with great force, and in a triumphant controversy with his opponents, the doctrine that, as the apostle says, salvation depends not on the conduct of man, but on the grace of god, not on the will of man, but on the willingness of god to pardon, who alone transforms the sinner, and grants him the power and the will for good. but any knowledge or understanding of this theology of augustine was as strange to his own order as to the scholastics. it was taught, indeed, that heaven was too high for man to attain to otherwise than by the grace of god. but it was also taught that the sinner, by his own natural strength, both could and ought to do enough in god's sight to earn that grace which would then help him further on the way to heaven. he who had thus obtained that grace, it was said, felt himself enabled and impelled to do even more than god's commands require. reference to the bitter passion and death of the saviour was not omitted, it is true, by the theologians with whom luther had to do, and frequently, as, for example, by his teacher palz, was impressed on christian hearts in words full of feeling. but the chief stress was laid, not on the redeeming love on which man could rest his confident assurance, but on the necessity of offering oneself to him who had offered himself for man, and of submitting even to the pains of death, in imitation of him, and to pay the penalty of sin. in this way, again and again, luther saw before him claims on the part of god which he could never hope to satisfy. his sorest trial was caused by the thought that god himself should have the will to let him fail after all his fruitless efforts, and finally be numbered with the lost. and it was just with the later scholastics that he found, not indeed a theory according to which god had simply predestined a part of mankind to perdition, but a general conception of god which would represent him as a being not so much of holy love, as of arbitrary, absolute will. luther spent two years in the convent amidst these strivings and inward sufferings. his spiritual life, as it was called, of strict discipline and asceticism was quoted in other convents as a model for imitation. now and then, indeed, he felt himself puffed up with a sense of superior sanctity--'a proud saint,' as he afterwards called himself. but humility was the ruling temper of his mind. frequently, in after life, he described his condition as a warning to others. thus he speaks of the disciples of the law, who try by their own works, by constant labour, by wearing shirts of hair, by self-scourging, by fasting, by every means, in short, to satisfy the law. such a one, he tells us, he himself had been. but he had also learned by experience, he adds, what happens when a man is tempted, and death or danger frightens him; how he despairs, nay, would fly from god as from the devil, and would rather that there were no god at all. so great became his inward sufferings, that he thought both body and soul must succumb. thus he tells us later on, when speaking of the torments of purgatory, of a man, who doubtless was himself, how he had often endured such agony, only momentary it is true, but so hellish in its violence, that no tongue could express nor pen describe it; that, had it lasted longer, even for half an hour, or only five minutes, he must have died then and there, and his bones have been consumed to ashes. he himself saw afterwards in these pains, visitations of a special kind, such as god does not send to everyone. but they served him then as a proof, and one of universal application, that that school of the law, as he called it, would bring no real holiness either to others or himself, but must teach a man to despair of himself and of any claims or merits of his own. and, indeed, as we know from all that had gone before, it was not simply the external barrenness of the regulations of church and convent, or a sense of imperfect fulfilment on his part, that caused his restlessness of conscience; what gave him the deepest anxiety and harassed him the most were those very inward stirrings, which revealed to him his opposition to god's eternal demands, the fulfilment of which he thought indispensable for reconciliation to god. his experiences at the convent led him to the perception of those principles which formed the groundwork of his preaching as a reformer. from his exemplary conduct there, and his wonderful and active conversion, he was compared to st. paul. in quite another sense he resembled the great apostle. the latter, when a pharisee, had laboured to justify himself before god by the law and the prophets. 'o wretched man that i am,' luther there must have exclaimed of himself, and afterwards looking back on his experiences, have counted all as 'dung and loss' in order to be justified rather by faith through the grace of god and the saviour, and to become free and holy. just as, meanwhile, inside the catholic church, the laws, dogmas, and school theories relating to the means of salvation, were never able to supplant entirely the thought of the simple testimony of the bible, and of the church's own confession of god's forgiving love and his redeeming and absolving grace, or to prevent simple, pious christians from seeking here a refuge in the inmost depths of their hearts, so now, at this very convent of erfurt, where luther's inward development in those theories and dogmas had reached so high a pitch, he received also the first serious impressions in the other direction. they found with him a difficult and gradual entrance, from the energy and consistency with which he had taken up his original standpoint. but with all the more energy, and with perfect consistency, did he abandon that standpoint, when new light dawned upon him from his new conception of the truth. luther's teacher at the convent, by whom we shall have to understand the superintendent of the novices, had already made a deep impression upon him, by reminding him of the words of the apostles' creed about the forgiveness of sins, and representing to him, what luther had never ventured to apply to himself, that the lord himself had commanded us to hope. for this he referred him to a passage in the writings of st. bernard, where that fervent preacher, imbued though he was in his theology with the church notions of the middle ages, insists on the importance of this very faith in god's forgiveness, and appeals to the words of st. paul that man is justified by grace through faith. remarks of this kind sank into luther's mind, and took root there, though their fruit only ripened by degrees. of his teacher arnoldi, also, he spoke with admiration and gratitude, for the comfort he had known how to impart to him. but the one who at this time acquired by far the most potent, wholesome, and lasting influence upon luther, was the vicar-general, john von staupitz. he was a remarkable man, of a noble and pious disposition, and a refined and far-seeing mind. a master of the forms of scholastic theology, he was also deeply read in scripture; he made its teachings the special standard of his life, and was careful to enjoin others to do the same. he strove after an inward, practical life in god, not confined to mere forms and observances. sharp conflicts and controversies were not to his taste; but mildly and discreetly he sought to plant, in his own field of work, and to leave what he had planted in god's name to grow up. [illustration: fig. .--staupitz. (from the portrait in st. peter's convent at salzburg.)] it was during his visits to erfurt that staupitz came in contact with the gifted, thoughtful, and melancholy young monk. he treated luther, both in conversation and letter, with fatherly confidence, and luther unlocked to him, as to a father, his heart and its cares. upon his wishing to confess to him all his many small sins, staupitz insisted first on distinguishing between what were really sins, and what were not; as for self-imagined sins, or such a patchwork of offences as luther laid before him, he would not listen to them; that was not the kind of seriousness, he would say, that god wished to have. luther tormented himself with a system of penance, consisting of actual pain, punishments, and expiations. staupitz taught him that repentance, in the scriptural meaning, was an inward change and conversion, which must proceed from the love of holiness and of god; and that, for peace with god, he must not look to his own good resolutions to lead a better life, which he had not the strength to carry out, or to his own acts, which could never satisfy the law of god, but must trust with patience to god's forgiving mercy, and learn to see in christ, whom god permitted to suffer for the sins of man, not the threatening judge, but rather the loving saviour. to christ above all he referred him, when luther pondered on the secret eternal will of god, and was near despair. god's eternal purpose, he would say, shines clearly in the wounds of christ. did his temptations not cease, he bade him see in them means to draw him to the love of god. the thoughts of staupitz turned in this on the temptations to pride, which might themselves be the means of curing that pride, and on the great things for which god wished to prepare him. in a simple, practical manner, and from the experiences of his own life, he would thus counsel and converse with luther. during the long course of a confidential intercourse with his friend, his own theology in later years became visibly developed, and his pupil of earlier days became afterwards his teacher. but luther, both then and throughout his life, spoke of him with grateful affection as his spiritual father, and thanked god that he had been helped out of his temptations by dr. staupitz, without whom he would have been swallowed up in them and perished. the first firm ground, however, for his convictions and his inner life, and the foundation for all his later teachings and works, was found by luther in his own persevering study of holy writ. in this also he was encouraged by staupitz, who must, however, have been amazed at his indefatigable industry and zeal. for the interpretation of the bible the means at his command were meagre in the extreme. he himself explored in all cases to their very centre the truths of christian salvation and the highest questions of moral and religious life. a single passage of importance would occupy his thoughts for days. significant words, which he was not able yet to comprehend, remained fixed in his mind, and he carried them silently about with him. thus it was, for example, as he tells us, with the text in ezekiel, 'i will not the death of a sinner,' a passage which engrossed his earnest thoughts. it was the third and last year of his monastic life at erfurt that brought with it, as far as we see, the decisive turn for his inward struggles and labours. in his second year, on may , , he received, by command of his superiors, his solemn ordination as a priest. it was then for the first time since his entry into the convent against his father's will, that the latter saw him again. a convenient day was expressly arranged for him, to enable him to take part personally at the solemnity. he rode into erfurt with a stately train of friends and relations. but in his opinion of the step taken by his son he remained unalterably firm. at the entertainment which was given in the convent to the young priest, the latter tried to extort from him a friendly remark upon the subject, by asking him why he seemed so angry, when monastic life was such a high and holy thing. his father replied in the presence of all the company, 'learned brothers, have you not read in holy writ, that a man must honour father and mother?' and on being reminded how his son had been called, nay, compelled to this new life by heaven, 'would to god,' he answered, 'it were no spirit of the devil!' he let them understand that he was there, eating and drinking, as a matter of duty, but that he would much rather be away. to luther, however, the post of high dignity to which he was now promoted brought new fear and anxiety. he had now to appear before god as a priest; to have christ's body, the very christ himself, and god actually present before him at the mass on the altar; to offer the body of christ as a sacrifice to the living and eternal god. added to this, there were a multitude of forms to observe, any oversight wherein was a sin. all this so overpowered him at his first mass, that he could scarcely remain at the altar; he was well-nigh, as he said afterwards, a dead man. with these priestly functions he united an assiduous devotion to his saints. by reading mass every morning, he invoked twenty-one particular saints, whom he had chosen as his helpers, taking three at a time, so as to include them all within the week. as regards the most important problems of life, his study of the scriptures gradually revealed to him the light which determined his future convictions. the path had already been pointed out to him by the words of st. paul quoted by st. bernard. when looking back, at the close of his life, on this his inward development, he tells us how perplexed he had been by what st. paul said of the 'righteousness of god' (rom. i. ). for a long time he troubled himself about the expression, connecting it as he did, according to the ruling theology of the day, with god's righteousness in his punishment of sinners. day and night he pondered over the meaning and context of the apostle's words. but at length, he adds, god in his great mercy revealed to him that what st. paul and the gospel proclaimed was a righteousness given freely to us by the grace of god, who forgives those who have faith in his message of mercy, and justifies them, and gives them eternal life. therewith the gate of heaven was opened to him, and thenceforth the whole remaining purport of god's word became clearly revealed. still it was only by degrees, during the latter portion of his stay at erfurt, and even after that, that he arrived at this full perception of the truth. after their ordination the monks received the title of fathers. luther was not as yet relieved of the duty of going out with a brother in quest of alms. but he was soon employed in the more important business of the order, as, for instance, in transactions with a high official of the archbishop, in which he displayed great zeal for the priesthood and for his order. with the scholastic theology of his time, albeit even now in a path marked out by himself, his keen understanding and happy memory had enabled him to become thoroughly familiar. he was scarcely twenty-five years old when staupitz, occupied with making provision for the newly-founded university of wittenberg, recognised in him the right man for a professorial chair. chapter ii. call to wittenberg. journey to rome. wittenberg was at that time the youngest of the german universities. it was founded in by the elector frederick the wise of saxony, a man pre-eminent among the german princes, not only from his prudence and circumspection, but also from his faithful care for his country, his genuine love for knowledge, and his deep religious feeling. his country was not a rich one. wittenberg itself was a poor, badly-built town of about three thousand inhabitants. but the elector showed his wisdom above all by his right choice of men whom he consulted in his work, and to whose hands he entrusted its conduct. these, in their turn, were very careful to select talented and trustworthy teachers for the institution, which was to depend for its success on the attractions offered by pure learning, and not those of outward show and a luxurious style of life among the students. the supervision of theology was entrusted by frederick to staupitz, whom personally he held in high esteem, and who, together with the learned and versatile martin pollich of melrichstadt, had already been the most active in his service in promoting the foundation of the university. staupitz himself entered the theological faculty as its first dean. a constant or regular application to his duties was rendered impossible by the multifarious business of his order, and the journeys it entailed. but in his very capacity of vicar-general, he strove to supply the theological needs of the university, and, by the means of education thus offered, to assist the members of his order. already before this the augustinian monks had had a settlement at wittenberg, though little is known about it. a handsome convent was built for them in . in a short time young inmates of this convent, and afterwards more monks of the same order who came from other parts, entered the university as students and took academical degrees. the patron saint of the university was, next to the virgin mary, st. augustine. trutvetter of erfurt became professor of theology at wittenberg in . it was early in the winter of - , when staupitz, who had been re-elected for the second time, was still dean of the theological faculty, that luther was suddenly and unexpectedly summoned thither. he had to obey not merely the advice and wish of an affectionate friend, but the will of the principal of his order. as hitherto he had simply graduated as a master in philosophy, and had not qualified himself academically for a professor of theology, luther at first was only called on to lecture on those philosophical subjects which, as we have seen, occupied his studies at erfurt. theologians, it is true, had been entrusted with these duties, just as, here at wittenberg, the first dean of the philosophical faculty was a theologian, and, in addition to that indeed, a member of the augustinian order. but from the beginning, luther was anxious to exchange the province of philosophy for that of theology, meaning thereby, as he expressed it, that theology which searched into the very kernel of the nut, the heart of the wheat, the marrow of the bones. so far, he was already confident of having found a sure ground for his christian faith, as well as for his inner life, and having found it, of being able to begin teaching others. indeed, while busily engaged in his first lectures on philosophy, he was preparing to qualify himself for his theological degrees. here also he had to begin with his baccalaureate, comprising in fact three different steps in the theological faculty, each of which had to be reached by an examination and disputation. the first step was that of bachelor of biblical knowledge, which qualified him to lecture on the holy scriptures. the second, or that of a _sententiarius_, was necessary for lecturing on the chief compendium of mediaeval school-theology, the so-called sentences of peter lombardus, the due performance of which duly led to the attainment of the third step. above the baccalaureate, with its three grades, came the rank of licentiate, which gave the right to teach the whole of theology, and lastly the formal, solemn admission as doctor of theology. already, on march , , luther had attained his first step in the baccalaureate. at the end of six months he was qualified, by the statutes of the university, to reach the second step, and in the course of the next six months he actually reached it. but before gaining his new rights as a _sententiarius_, he was summoned back by the authorities of his order to erfurt. the reason we do not know; we only know that he entered the theological faculty there as professor, receiving, at the same time, the recognition of the academical rank he had acquired at wittenberg. at erfurt he remained about three terms, or eighteen months. after that he returned to the university at wittenberg. trutvetter, towards the end of , had received a summons back to erfurt from wittenberg. the void thus caused by his summons away may have had something to do with luther's return thither. at all events his position at wittenberg was now vastly different from that which he had previously held. no theologian, his superior in years or fame, was any longer above him. ere long, however, luther received another commission from his order; a proof of the confidence reposed also in his zeal for the order, his practical understanding, and his energy. it was about a matter in which, by staupitz's desire, other augustinian convents in germany were to enter into a union with the reformed convents and the vicar of the order. as opposition had been raised, luther in , no doubt at the suggestion of staupitz, was sent on this matter to rome, where the decision was to be given. the journey thither and back may easily have taken six weeks or more. according to rule and custom, two monks were always sent out together, and a lay-brother was given them for service and company. they used to make their way on foot. in rome the brethren of the order were received by the augustinian monastery of maria del popolo. thus luther went forth to the great capital of the world, to the throne of the head of the church. he remained there four weeks, discharging his duties, and surrounded by all her monuments and relics of ecclesiastical interest. no definite account of the result of the business he had to transact, has been handed down to us. we only learn that staupitz, the vicar of the order, was afterwards on friendly relations with the convents which had opposed his scheme, and that he refrained from urging any more unwelcome innovations. for us, however, the most important parts of this journey are the general observations and experiences which luther made in italy, and, above all, at the papal chair itself. he often refers to them later in his speeches and writings, in the midst of his work and warfare, and he tells us plainly how important to him afterwards was all that he there saw and heard. the devotion of a pilgrim inspired him as he arrived at the city which he had long regarded with holy veneration. it had been his wish, during his troubles and heart-searchings, to make one day a regular and general confession in that city. when he came in sight of her, he fell upon the earth, raised his hands, and exclaimed 'hail to thee, holy rome!' she was truly sanctified, he declared afterwards, through the blessed martyrs, and their blood which had flowed within her walls. but he added, with indignation at himself, how he had run like a crazy saint on a pilgrimage through all the churches and catacombs, and had believed what turned out to be a mass of rank lies and impostures. he would gladly then have done something for the welfare of his friends' souls by mass-reading and acts of devotion in places of particular sanctity. he felt downright sorry, he tells us, that his parents were still alive, as he might have performed some special act to release them from the pains of purgatory. but in all this he found no real peace of mind: on the contrary, his soul was stirred to the consciousness of another way of salvation which had already begun to dawn upon him. whilst climbing, on his knees and in prayer, the sacred stairs which were said to have led to the judgment-hall of pilate, and whither, to this day, worshippers are invited by the promise of papal absolutions, he thought of the words of st. paul in his epistle to the romans (i. ), 'the just shall live by faith. as for any spiritual enlightenment and consolation, he found none among the priests and monks of rome. he was struck indeed with the external administration of business and the nice arrangement of legal matters at the papal see. but he was shocked by all that he observed of the moral and religious life and doings at this centre of christianity; the immorality of the clergy, and particularly of the highest dignitaries of the church, who thought themselves highly virtuous if they abstained from the very grossest offences; the wanton levity with which the most sacred names and things were treated; the frivolous unbelief, openly expressed among themselves by the spiritual pastors and masters of the church. he complains of the priests scrambling through mass as if they were juggling; while he was reading one mass, he found they had finished seven: one of them once urged him to be quick by saying 'get on, get on, and make haste to send her son home to our lady.' he heard jokes even made about the priests when consecrating the elements at mass, repeating in latin the words 'bread thou art, and bread thou shalt remain: wine thou art, and wine thou shalt remain.' he often remarked in later years how they would apply in derision the term 'good christian' to those who were stupid enough to believe in christian truth, and to be scandalised by anything said to the contrary. no one, he declared, would believe what villanies and shameful doings were then in vogue, if they had not seen and heard them with their own eyes and ears. but the truth of his testimony is confirmed by those very men whose life and conduct so shocked and revolted him. he must have been indignant, moreover, at the contemptuous tone in which the 'stupid germans' or 'german beasts' were spoken of, as persons entitled to no notice or respect at rome. he was astonished at the pomp and splendour which surrounded the pope when he appeared in public. he speaks, as an eye-witness, of the processions, like those of a triumphing monarch. but the horrible stories were then still fresh at rome of the late pope alexander and his children, the murder of his brother, the poisoning, the incest, and other crimes. of the then pope, julius ii., luther heard nothing reported, except that he managed his temporal affairs with energy and shrewdness, made war, collected money, and contracted and dissolved, entered into and broke, political alliances. at the time of luther's visit, he was just returning from a campaign in which he had conducted in person the sanguinary siege of a town. luther did not fail to observe that he had established in the sacred city an excellent body of police, and that he caused the streets to be kept clean, so that there was not much pestilence about. but he looked upon him simply as a man of the world, and afterwards fulminated against him as a strong man of blood. all these experiences at rome did not, however, then avail to shake luther's faith in the authority of the hierarchy which had such unworthy ministers; though, later on, when he was forced to attack the papacy itself, they made it easier for him to shape his judgment and conclusions. 'i would not have missed seeing rome,' he then declared, 'for a hundred thousand florins, for i might then have felt some apprehension that i had done injustice to the pope. but as we see, we speak.' during his visit he also roamed about among the ruins of the ancient capital of the world, and was astonished at the remains of bygone worldly splendour. the works of the new art which pope julius was then beginning to call into existence, did not appear to have particularly engaged his attention. the pope was then progressing with the building of the new church of st. peter. the indulgence, of which the proceeds were to enable the completion of this vast undertaking, led afterwards to the struggle between the augustinian monk and the papacy. chapter iii. luther as theological teacher, to on his return to his wittenberg convent, luther was made sub-prior. at the university he entered fully upon all the rights and duties of a teacher of theology, having been made licentiate and doctor. here again it was staupitz, his friend and spiritual superior, who urged this step: luther's own wish was to leave the university and devote himself entirely to the office of his order. the elector frederick, who had been struck with luther by hearing one of his sermons, took this, the first opportunity, of showing him personal sympathy, by offering to defray the expenses of his degree. luther was reluctant to accept this, and years after he was fond of showing his friends a pear-tree in the courtyard of the convent, under which he discussed the matter with staupitz, who, however, insisted on his demand. he must have felt the more sensibly the responsibility of his new task, from his own personal strivings after new and true theological light. it was a satisfaction to him afterwards, amidst the endless and unexpected labours and contests which his vocation brought with it, to reflect that he had undertaken it, not from choice, but so entirely from obedience. 'had i known what i now know,' he would exclaim in his later trials and dangers, 'not ten horses would ever have dragged me into it.' after the necessary preliminaries and customary forms, he received on october , , the rights of a licentiate, and on the th and th was solemnly admitted to the degree of doctor. as licentiate he promised to defend with all his power the truth of the gospel, and he must have had this oath particularly in his mind when he afterwards appealed to the fact of his having sworn on his beloved bible to preach it faithfully and in its purity. his oath as doctor, which followed, bound him to abstain from doctrines condemned by the church and offensive to pious ears. obedience to the pope was not required at wittenberg, as it was at other universities. others, besides staupitz, expected from the beginning something original and remarkable from the new professor. pollich, the first great representative of wittenberg in its early days, and who died in the following year, said of him, 'this monk will revolutionise the whole system of scholastic teaching.' he seems, like others whom we hear of afterwards, to have been especially struck with the depth of luther's eyes, and thought that they must reveal the working of a wonderful mind. a new theology, in fact, presented itself at once to luther in the subject which, as doctor, he chose and exclusively adhered to in his lectures. this was the bible, the very book of which the study was so generally undervalued in school-theology, which so many doctors of theology scarcely knew, and which was usually so hastily forsaken for those scholastic sentences and a corresponding exposition of ecclesiastical dogmas. luther began with lectures upon the psalms. it is his first work on theology which has remained to posterity. we still possess a latin text of the psalter furnished with running notes for his lectures (a copy of it is given in these pages), and also his own manuscript of those lectures themselves. in these also he states that his task was imposed upon him by a distinct command: he frankly confessed that as yet he was insufficiently acquainted with the psalms; a comparison of his notes and lectures shows further, how continually he was engaged in prosecuting these studies. his explanations indeed fall short of what is required at present, and even of what he himself required later on. he still follows wholly the mediaeval practice of thinking it necessary to find, throughout the words of the psalmist, pictorial allegories relating to christ, his work of salvation, and his people. but he was thus enabled to propound, while explaining the psalms, the fundamental principles of that doctrine of salvation which for some years past had taken such hold on his inmost thoughts and so engrossed his theological studies. and in addition to the fruits of his researches in scripture, especially in the writings of st. paul, we observe the use he made of the works of st. augustine. his acquaintance with the latter did not commence until years after he had joined the order, and had acquired independently an intimate knowledge of the bible. it was mainly through them that he was enabled to comprehend the teaching of st. paul, and to find how the doctrine of divine grace, which we have already alluded to, was based on pauline authority. thus the founder of the order became, as it were, his first teacher among human theologians. from his lectures on the psalms luther proceeded a few years later to an exposition of those epistles which were to him the main source of his new belief in god's mercy and justice, namely, the epistles to the romans and the galatians. in the convent also at wittenberg, the direction of the theological studies of the brethren was entrusted to luther. his fellow-labourer in this field was his friend john lange, who had been with him also in the convent at erfurt. he was distinguished for a rare knowledge of greek, and was therefore a valuable help even to luther, to whom he was indebted in turn for a prolific advance in learning of another kind. closely allied with luther also was wenzeslaus link, the prior of the convent, who obtained his degree as doctor of the theological faculty a year before him. these men were drawn together by similarity of ideas, and by a strong and enduring personal friendship; they had possibly been acquainted at the school at magdeburg. the new life and activity awakened at wittenberg attracted clever young monks more and more from a distance. the convent, not yet quite finished, had scarcely room enough for them, or means for their maintenance. when in the associated convents had to choose at gotha, on a chapter-day, their new authorities, luther was appointed, staupitz being still vicar-general, the provincial vicar for meissen and thuringia. he obtained by this office the superintendence of eleven convents, to which in the next year he paid the customary visitation. in person, by word of mouth, and equally by letters, we see him labouring with self-sacrificing zeal for the spiritual welfare of those committed to his care, for the correction of bad monks, for the comfort of those oppressed with temptations, as also for the temporal and domestic, and even the legal business of the different convents. in addition to his academical duties, he performed double service as a preacher. in the first place he had to preach in his convent, as he had already done at erfurt. when the new convent at wittenberg was opened, the church was not yet ready; and in a small, poor, tumbledown chapel close by, made up of wood and clay, he began to preach the gospel and unfold the power of his eloquence. when, shortly after, the town-priest of wittenberg became weak and ailing, his congregation pressed luther to occupy the pulpit in his place. he performed these different duties with alacrity, energy, and power. he would preach sometimes daily for a week together, sometimes even three times in one day; during lent in he gave two sermons every day in addition to his lectures at the university. the zeal which he displayed in proclaiming the gospel to his hearers in church, was quite as new and peculiar to himself as the lofty interest he imparted to his professorial lectures on the scriptures. melancthon says of these first lectures by luther on the psalms and the epistle to the romans, that after a long and dark night, a new day was now seen to dawn on christian doctrine. in these lectures luther pointed out the difference between the law and the gospel. he refuted the errors, then predominant in the church and schools, the old teaching of the pharisees, that men could earn forgiveness by their works, and that mere outward penance would justify them in the sight of god. luther called men back to the son of god; and just as john the baptist pointed to the lamb of god who bore our sins, so luther showed how, for his son's sake, god in his mercy will forgive us our sins, and how we must accept such mercy in faith. in fact, the whole groundwork of that christian faith on which the inner life of the reformer rests, for which he fought, and which gave him strength and fresh courage for the fight, lies already before us in his lectures and sermons during those years, and increases in clearness and decision. the 'new day' had, in reality, broken upon his eyes. that fundamental truth which he designated later as the article by which a christian church must stand or fall, stands here already firmly established, before he in the least suspects that it would lead him to separate from the catholic church, or that his adopting it would occasion a reconstruction of the church. the primary question around which everything else centred, remained always this--how he, the sinful man, could possibly stand before god and obtain salvation. with this came the question as to the righteousness of god; and now he was no longer terrified by the avenging justice of god, wherewith he threatens the sinner; but he recognised and saw the meaning of that righteousness declared in the gospel (rom. i. , iii. ), by which the merciful god justifies the faithful, in that he of his own grace re-establishes them in his sight, and effects an inward change, and lets them thenceforth, like children, enjoy his fatherly love and blessing. luther, in teaching now that justification proceeds from faith, rejects, above all, the notion that man by any outward acts of his own can ever atone for his sins and merit the favour of god. he reminds us, moreover, with regard to moral works especially, that good fruits always presuppose a good tree, upon which alone they can grow, and that, in like manner, goodness can only proceed from a man, if and when, in his inward being, his inward thoughts, tendencies, and feelings, he has already become good; he must be righteous himself, in a word, before he works righteousness. but it is faith, and faith alone, which in the inward man determines real communion with god. then only, and gradually, can a man's own inner being, trusting to god, and by means of his imparted grace, become truly renovated and purged from sin. had luther, indeed, made salvation depend on such a righteousness, derived from a man's own works, as should satisfy the holy god, the very consciousness of his own sins and infirmities would have made him despair of such salvation. moreover, all the working of the holy spirit, and his gifts in our hearts, presuppose that we are already participators of the forgiving mercy and grace of god, and are received into communion with him. to this, as luther teaches after st. paul, we can only attain through faith in the joyful message of his mercy, in his compassion, and in his son, whom he has sent to be our redeemer. thus he speaks of faith, even in his earliest notes on the psalter, as the keystone, the marrow, the short road. the worst enemy, in his sight, is self-righteousness; he confesses having had to combat it himself. herein also luther found the theology of st. augustine in accord with the testimony of the great apostle. while studying that theology, his conviction of the power of sin and the powerlessness of man's own strength to overcome it, grew more and more decided. but st. paul taught him to understand that belief somewhat differently to st. augustine. to luther it was not merely a recognition of objective truths or historical facts. what he understood by it, with a clearness and decision which are wanting in st. augustine's teaching, was the trusting of the heart in the mercy offered by the message of salvation, the personal confidence in the saviour christ and in that which he has gained for us. with this faith, then, and by the merits and mediation of the saviour in whom this faith is placed, we stand before god, we have already the assurance of being known by god and of being saved, and we are partakers of the holy spirit, who sanctifies more and more the inner man. according to st. augustine, on the contrary, and to all catholic theologians who followed his teaching, what will help us before god is rather that inward righteousness which god himself gives to man by his holy spirit and the workings of his grace, or, as the expression was, the righteousness infused by god. the good, therefore, already existing in a christian is so highly esteemed that he can thereby gain merit before the just god and even do more than is required of him. but to a conscience like luther's, which applied so severe a standard to human virtue and works, and took such stern count of past and present sins, such a doctrine could bring no assurance of forgiveness, mercy, and salvation. it was in faith alone that luther had found this assurance, and for it he needed no merits of his own. the happy spirit of the child of god, by its own free impulse, would produce in a christian the genuine good fruit pleasing in god's sight. it was a long time before luther himself became aware how he differed on this point from his chief teacher amongst theologians. but we see the difference appear at the very root and beginning of his new doctrine of salvation; and it comes out finally, based on apostolic authority, clear and sharp, in the theology of the reformer. and inseparably connected with this is what melancthon said about the law and the gospel. luther himself always declared in later days, that the whole understanding of the truth of christian salvation, as revealed by god, depends on a right perception of the relation of one to the other, and this very relation he explained, shortly before the beginning of his contest with the church, upon the authority of st. paul's epistles. the law is to him the epitome of god's demands with regard to will and works, which still the sinner cannot fulfil. the gospel is the blessed offer and announcement of that forgiving mercy of god which is to be accepted in simple faith. by the law says luther, the sinner is judged, condemned, killed; he himself had to toil and disquiet himself under it, as though he were in the hands of a gaoler and executioner. the gospel first lifts up those who are crushed, and makes them alive by the faith which the good message awakens in their hearts. but god works in both; in the one, a work which to him, the god of love, would properly be strange; in the other, his own work of love, for which, however, he has first prepared the sinner by the former. whilst luther was prosecuting his labours in this path, he became acquainted in with the sermons of the pious, deep-thinking theologian tauler, who died in ; and at the same time an old theological tract, written not long after tauler, fell into his hands, to which he gave the name of 'german theology.' now for the first time, and in the person of their noblest representatives, he was confronted with the christian and theological views which were commonly designated as the practical german mysticism of the middle ages. here, instead of the value which the mediaeval church, so addicted to externals, ascribed to outward acts and ordinances, he found the most devout absorption in the sentiments of real christian religion. instead of the barren, formal expositions and logical operations of the scholastic intellect, he found a striving and wrestling of the whole inner man, with all the mind and will, after direct communion and union with god, who himself seeks to draw into this union the soul devoted to him, and makes it become like to himself. such a depth of contemplation and such fervour of a christian mind luther had not found even in an augustine. he rejoiced to see this treasure written in his native german, and it certainly was the noblest german he had ever read. he felt himself marvellously impressed by this theology; he knew of no sermons, so he wrote to a friend, which agreed more faithfully with the gospel than those of tauler. he published that tract--then not quite complete--in , and again afterwards in . it was the first publication from his hand. his further sermons and writings show how deeply he was imbued with its contents. the influences he here received had a lasting effect on the formation of his inner life and his theology. with regard to sin, he now learned that its deepest roots and fundamental character lay in our own wills, in self-love and selfishness. to enjoy communion with god it is necessary that the heart should put away all worldliness, and let its natural will be dead, so that god alone may live and work in us. so, as he says on the title-page of 'german theology,' shall adam die in us and christ be made alive. but the essential peculiarity of luther's doctrine of salvation, grounded as it was directly on scripture, still remained intact, despite the theology no less of the mystics than of augustine, and, after passing through these influences, developed its full independence during his struggles as a reformer. for this communion with god he never thought it necessary, as the mystics maintained, to renounce one's personality and retire altogether from the world and things temporal: a purely passive attitude towards god, and a blessedness consisting in such an attitude, was not his highest or ultimate ideal. a man's personality, he held, should only be destroyed so far as it resists the will of god, and dares to assert its self-righteousness and merits before him. the road to real communion with god was always that 'short road' of faith, in which the contrite sinner, who feels his personality crushed by the consciousness of sin, grasps the hand of divine mercy, and is lifted up by it and restored. christ was manifested, as the mystics said with scripture, in order that the man's personality should die with him, and imitate him in self-renunciation. but the faith, on which luther insisted, saw in christ above all the saviour who has died for us, and who pleads for us before god with his holy life and conduct, that the faithful may obtain through him reconciliation and salvation. what the saviour is to us in this respect luther has thus summarised in words of his own: 'lord jesus,' he says, 'thou hast taken to thyself what is mine, and given to me what is thine.' the main divergence between luther and the german mysticism of the middle ages consists primarily in a different estimate of the general relations between god and the moral personality of man. with the mystics, behind the christian and religious, lay a metaphysical conception of god, as a being of absolute power, superior to all destiny, apparently rich in attributes, but in reality an empty abstraction,--above all, a being who suffers nothing finite to exist in independence of himself. with luther the fundamental conception of god remained this, that he is the perfect good, and that, in his perfect holiness, he is love. this is the god by whom the sinner who has faith is restored and justified. from this conception as a starting-point, luther acquired fresh strength and energy for advancing in the fight, whilst the pious mystic remained passively and quietly behind. from this also he learned to realise christian liberty and moral duty in regard to daily life and its vocations, whilst the mystics remained shut off altogether from the world. the intimate connection between the conclusions to which the views of tauler tended, and the principles from which luther started, is shown further by the superior attraction which those sermons, so warmly recommended by luther, continued to exercise upon members of the evangelical, compared with those of the catholic church. what christ has suffered and done for us, and how we gain through him the righteousness of god, peace, and real life,--these thoughts of practical religion pervaded now all luther's discourses. to the saving knowledge of these facts he endeavoured to direct his lectures, and discarded the dogmatical inquiries and subtle investigations and speculations of school-theology. at first, and even in his sermons at the convent, he had employed in his exposition of biblical truths, as was the custom of learned preachers, philosophical expressions and references to aristotle and famous scholastics. but latterly, and at the time we are speaking of, he had entirely left this off; and, as regards the form of his sermons, instead of a stiff, logical construction of sentences, he employed that simple, lively, powerful eloquence which distinguished him above all preachers of his time. in and he delivered a course of sermons on the ten commandments and the lord's prayer before his town congregation, with the view of showing the connection of the truths of christian religion. he further had printed in , for christian readers generally, an explanation of the seven penitential psalms. he wished, as the title stated, to expound them thoroughly in their scriptural meaning, for setting forth the grace of christ and god, and enabling true self-knowledge. it is the first of his writings, published by himself, and in the german language, which we possess; for the later lectures that were published were delivered by him in latin, and the first sermons we have of his were also written by him in that language. we give here the title and preface from the original print. [illustration: fig. --title and preface of penitential psalms.] luther had now become possessed with a burning desire to refute, by means of the truth he had newly learned, the teaching and system of that school-theology on which he himself had wasted so much time and labour, and by which he saw that same truth darkened and obstructed. he first attacked aristotle, the heathen philosopher from whom this theology, he said, received its empty and perverted formalism, whose system of physics was worthless, and who, especially in his conception of moral life and moral good, was blind, since he knew nothing of the essence and ground of true righteousness. the scholastics, as luther himself remarked against them, had failed signally to understand the genuine original philosophy of aristotle. but the real greatness and significance which must be allowed to that philosophy, in the development of human thought and knowledge, were far removed from those profound questions of christian morality and religion which engrossed luther's mind, and from those truths to which he again had to testify. in theses which formed the subject of disputation among his followers, luther expressed with particular acuteness his own doctrine, and that of augustine, concerning the inability of man, and the grace of god, and his opposition to the previously dominant schoolmen and their aristotle. he was anxious also to hear the verdict of others, particularly of his teacher trutvetter, upon his new polemics. he already could boast that, at wittenberg, his, or as he called it, the augustinian theology, had found its way to victory. it was adopted by the theologians who had taught there, though wholly in the old scholastic fashion, before him, especially by carlstadt, who soon strove to outbid him in this new direction, and who, later on, in his own zeal for reform, fell into disputes with the great reformer himself, and also by nicholas von amsdorf, whom we shall see afterwards at luther's side as his personal friend and strongest supporter. at erfurt, luther's former convent, his friend and sympathiser lange was now prior, having returned thither from wittenberg, where indeed his former teachers could not yet accommodate themselves to his new ways. of great importance to luther's work and position was his friendship with george spalatin (properly burkardt of spelt), the court preacher and private secretary of the elector frederick, a conscientious, clear-minded theologian, and a man of varied culture and calm, thoughtful judgment. he was of the same age as luther; he had been with him at erfurt as a fellow-student, and at wittenberg afterwards, whither he came as tutor to the prince, and had remained on terms of intimacy with him. to luther he proved an upright, warmhearted friend, and to the elector a faithful and sagacious adviser. it was mainly due to his influence that the elector showed such continued favour to luther, marks of which he displayed by presents, such as that of a piece of richly-wrought cloth, which luther thought almost too good for a monk's frock. spalatin had also been a member of that circle of 'poets' at erfurt; he kept up his connection with them, and corresponded with erasmus, the head of the humanists, and thus acted as a medium of communication for luther in this quarter. elsewhere in germany we find the theology of augustine or of st. paul, as represented by luther, taking root first among his friends at nüremberg; in w. link came there as prior of the augustinian convent. [illustration: fig. .--spalatin. (from l. cranach's portrait.)] we have seen how luther as a student associated with the young humanists at erfurt, and now, whilst striving further on that road of theology which he had marked out for himself, he was still accessible to the general interests of learning as represented by the humanistic movement. he made the acquaintance, at least by letter, of the celebrated mutianus rufus of gotha, whom those 'poets' honoured as their famous master, and with whom lange and spalatin maintained a respectful intercourse. when the humanist john reuchlin, then the first hebrew scholar in germany, was declared a heretic by zealous theologians and monks, on account of the protests he raised against the burning of the rabbinical books of the jews, and a fierce quarrel broke out in consequence, luther, on being asked by spalatin for his opinion, declared himself strongly for the humanists against those who, being gnats themselves, tried to swallow camels. his heart, he said, was so full of this matter that his tongue could not find utterance. still, the bold satire with which his former college friend crotus and other humanists lashed their opponents and held them up to ridicule, as in the famous 'epistolae virorum obscurorum,' was not to luther's taste at all. the matter was to him far too serious for such treatment. the first place among the men who revived the knowledge of antiquity, and strove to apply that knowledge for the benefit of their own times and particularly of theology, belongs undoubtedly to erasmus, from his comprehensive learning, his refinement of mind, and his indefatigable industry. just when, in , he brought out a remarkable edition of the new testament, with a translation and explanatory comments, which forms in fact an epoch in its history. luther recognised his high talents and services, and was anxious to see him exercise the influence he deserved. he speaks of him in a letter to spalatin as 'our erasmus.' but nevertheless he steadily asserted his own independence, and reserved the right of free judgment about him. two things he lamented in him; first of all that he lacked, as was the case, the comprehension of that fundamental doctrine of st. paul as to human sin and righteousness by faith; and further, that he made even the errors of the church, which should be a source of genuine sorrow to every christian, a subject of ridicule. he sought, however, to keep his opinion of erasmus to himself, to avoid giving occasion to his jealous and unscrupulous enemies to malign him. [illustration: fig. .--erasmus. (from the portrait by a. dürer.)] bitterness and ill-will, aroused by luther's words and works, were already not wanting among the followers of the hitherto dominant views of theology and the church. but of any separation from the church, her authority and her fundamental forms, he had as yet no intention or idea. nor, on the other hand, did his enemies take occasion to obtain sentence of expulsion against him, until he found himself forced to conclusions which threatened the power and the income of the hierarchy. as yet he had not expressed or entertained a thought against the ordinances which enslaved every christian to the priesthood and its power. he certainly showed, in his new doctrine of salvation, the way which leads the soul, by simple faith in the message of mercy sent to all alike, to its god and saviour. but he had no idea of disputing that everyone should confess to the priests, receive from them absolution, and submit to all the penances and ordinances ordained by the church. and in that very doctrine of salvation he knew that he was at one with augustine, the most eminent teacher of the western church, whilst the opposite views, however dominant in point of fact, had never yet received any formal sanction of the church. zealously, indeed, he soon exposed many practical abuses and errors in the religious life of the church. but hitherto these were only such as had been long before complained of and combated by others, and which the church had never expressly declared as essential parts of her own system. he gave vent freely to his opinions about the superstitious worship of saints, about absurd legends, about the heathen practice of invoking the saints for temporal welfare or success. but praying to the saints to intercede for us with god he still justified against the heresy originating with huss, and with fervour he invoked the virgin from the pulpit. he was anxious that the priests and bishops should do their duty much better and more conscientiously than was the case, and that instead of troubling themselves about worldly matters, they should care for the good of souls, and feed their flocks with god's word. he saw in the office of bishop, from the difficulties and temptations it involved, an office fraught with danger, and one therefore that he did not wish for his staupitz. but the divine origin and divine right of the hierarchical offices of pope, bishop, and priest, and the infallibility of the church, thus governed, he held inviolably sacred. the hussites who broke from her were to him 'sinful heretics.' nay, at that time he used the very argument by which afterwards the romish church thought to crush the principles and claims of the reformation, namely, that if we deny that power of the church and papacy, any man may equally say that he is filled with the holy ghost; everyone will claim to be his own master, and there will be as many churches as heads. as yet he was only seeking to combat those abuses which were outside the spirit and teaching of the catholic church, when the scandals of the traffic in indulgences called him to the field of battle. and it was only when in this battle the pope and the hierarchy sought to rob him of his evangelical doctrine of salvation, and of the joy and comfort he derived from the knowledge of redemption by christ, that, from his stand on the bible, he laid his hands upon the strongholds of this churchdom. part iii. the breach with rome, up to the diet of worms. - . chapter i. the ninety-five theses. the first occasion for the struggle which led to the great division in the christian world was given by that magnificent edifice of ecclesiastical splendour intended by the popes as the creation of the new italian art; by the building, in a word, of st. peter's church, which had already been commenced when luther was at rome. indulgences were to furnish the necessary means. julius ii. had now been succeeded on the papal chair by leo x. so far as concerned the encouragement of the various arts, the revival of ancient learning, and the opening up, by that means, to the cultivated and upper classes of society of a spring of rich intellectual enjoyment, leo would have been just the man for the new age. but whilst actively engaged in these pursuits and pleasures, he remained indifferent to the care and the spiritual welfare of his flock, whom as christ's vicar he had undertaken to feed. the frivolous tone of morals that ruled at the papal see was looked upon as an element of the new culture. as regards the christian faith, a blasphemous saying is reported of leo, how profitable had been the fable of christ. he had no scruples in procuring money for the new church, which, as he said, was to protect and glorify the bones of the holy apostles, by a dirty traffic, pernicious to the soul. meanwhile, the popes were not ashamed to appropriate freely to their own needs that indulgence money, which was nominally for the church and for other objects, such as the war against the turks. in order to appreciate the nature of these indulgences and of luther's attack upon them, it is necessary first to realise more exactly the significance which the teachers of the church ascribed to them. the simple statement that absolution or forgiveness of sins was sold for money, must in itself be offence enough to any moral christian conscience; and we can only wonder that luther proceeded so prudently and gradually towards his object of getting rid of indulgences altogether. but the arguments by which they were explained and justified did not sound so simple or concise. [illustration: leo x. (from his portrait by raphael.)] forgiveness of sins, it was maintained, must be gained by penance, namely, by the so-called sacrament of penance, including the acts of private confession and priestly absolution. in this the father-confessor promised to him who had confessed his sins, absolution for them, whereby his guilt was forgiven and he was freed from eternal punishment. a certain contrition of the heart was required from him, even if only imperfect, and proceeding perhaps solely from the fear of punishment, but which nevertheless was deemed sufficient, its imperfection being supplied by the sacrament. but though absolved, he had still to discharge heavy burdens of temporal punishment, penances imposed by the church, and chastisements which, in the remission of eternal punishment, god in his righteousness still laid upon him. if he failed to satisfy these penances in this life, he must, even if no longer in danger of hell, atone for the rest in the torments of the fire of purgatory. the indulgence now came in to relieve him. the church was content with easier tasks, as, at that time, with a donation to the sacred edifice at rome. and even this was made to rest on a certain basis of right. the church, it was said, had to dispose of a treasure of merits which christ and the saints, by their good works, had accumulated before the righteous god, and those riches were now to be so disposed of by christ's representatives, that they should benefit the buyer of indulgences. in this manner penances which otherwise would have to be endured for years were commuted into small donations of money, quickly paid off. the contrition required for the forgiveness of sins was not altogether ignored; as, for instance, in the official announcements of indulgences, and in the letters or certificates granting indulgences to individuals in return for payment. but in those documents, as also in the sermons exhorting the multitude to purchase, the chief stress, so far as possible, was laid upon the payment. the confession, and with it the contrition, was also mentioned, but nothing was said about the personal remission of sins depending on this rather than on the money. perfect forgiveness of sins was announced to him who, after having confessed and felt contrition, had thrown his contribution into the box. for the souls in purgatory nothing was required but money offered for them by the living. 'the moment the money tinkles in the box, the soul springs up out of purgatory.' a special tariff was arranged for the commission of particular sins, as, for example, six ducats for adultery. the traffic in indulgences for the building of st. peter's was delegated by commission from the pope, over a large part of germany, to albert, archbishop of mayence and magdeburg. we shall meet with this great prince of the church, as now in connection with the origin of the reformation, so during its subsequent course. albert, the brother of the elector of brandenburg, and cousin of the grand-master of the teutonic order in prussia, stood in , though only twenty-seven years old, already at the head of those two great ecclesiastical provinces of germany; wittenberg also belonged to his magdeburg diocese. raised to such an eminence and so rapidly by good fortune, he was filled with ambitious thoughts. he troubled himself little about theology. he loved to shine as the friend of the new humanistic learning, especially of an erasmus, and as patron of the fine arts, particularly of architecture, and to keep a court the splendour of which might correspond with his own dignity and love of art. for this his means were inadequate, especially as, on entering upon his archbishopric of mayence, he had had to pay, as was customary, a heavy sum to the pope for the _pallium_ given for the occasion. for this he had been forced to borrow thirty thousand gulden from the house of fugger at augsburg, and he found his aspirations incessantly crippled by want of money and by debts. he succeeded at last in striking a bargain with the pope, by which he was allowed to keep half of the profits arising from the sale of indulgences, in order to repay the fuggers their loan. behind the preacher of indulgences, who announced god's mercy to the paying believers, stood the agents of that commercial house, who collected their share for their principals. the dominican monk, john tetzel, a profligate man, whom the archbishop had appointed his sub-commissioner, drove the largest trade in this business with an audacity and a power of popular declamation well suited to his work. [illustration: fig. .--the archbishop albert. (from dürer's engraving.)] contemporaries have described the lofty and well-ordered pomp with which such a commissioner entered on the performance of his exalted duties. priests, monks, and magistrates, schoolmasters and scholars, men, women, and children, went forth in procession to meet him, with songs and ringing of bells, with flags and torches. they entered the church together amidst the pealing of the organ. in the middle of the church, before the altar, was erected a large red cross, hung with a silken banner which bore the papal arms. before the cross was placed a large iron chest to receive the money; specimens of these chests are still shown in many places. daily, by sermons, hymns, processions round the cross, and other means of attraction, the people were invited and urged to embrace this incomparable offer of salvation. it was arranged that auricular confession should be taken wholesale. the main object was the payment, in return for which the 'contrite' sinners received a letter of indulgence from the commissioner, who, with a significant reference to the absolute power granted to himself, promised them complete absolution and the good opinion of their fellow-men. [illustration: fig. --title-page of a pamphlet written at the beginning of the reformation, with an illustration showing the sale of indulgences.] we have evidence to show how tetzel preached himself, and what he wished these sermons on indulgences to be like. calling upon the people, he summoned all, and especially the great sinners, such as murderers and robbers, to turn to their god and receive the medicine which god, in his mercy and wisdom, had provided for their benefit. st. stephen once had given up his body to be stoned, st. lawrence his to be roasted, st. bartholomew his to a fearful death. would they not willingly sacrifice a little gift in order to obtain everlasting life? of the souls in purgatory it was said, 'they, your parents and relatives, are crying out to you, "we are in the bitterest torments, you could deliver us by giving a small alms, and yet you will not. we have given you birth, nourished you, and left to you our temporal goods; and such is your cruelty that you, who might so easily make us free, leave us here to lie in the flames."' to all who directly or indirectly, in public or in private, should in any way depreciate, or murmur against, or obstruct these indulgences, it was announced that, by papal edict, they lay already by so doing under the ban of excommunication, and could only be absolved by the pope or by one of his commissioners. after luther had once ventured to attack openly this sale of indulgences, it was admitted even by their defenders and the violent enemies of the reformer, that in those days 'greedy commissioners, monks and priests, had preached unblushingly about indulgences, and had laid more stress upon the money than upon confession, repentance, and sorrow.' christian people were shocked and scandalised at the abuse. it was asked whether indeed god so loved the money, that for the sake of a few pence he would leave a soul in everlasting torments, or why the pope did not out of love empty the whole of purgatory, since he was willing to free innumerable souls in return for such a trifle as a contribution to the building of a church. but not one of them found it then expedient to incur the abuse and slander of a tetzel by a word spoken openly against the gross misconduct the fruits of which were so important to the pope and the archbishop. tetzel now came to the borders of the elector of saxony's dominion, and to the neighbourhood of wittenberg. the elector would not allow him to enter his territory, on account of so much money being taken away, and accordingly he opened his trade at jüterbok. among those who confessed to luther, there were some who appealed to letters of indulgence which they had purchased from him there. in a sermon preached as early as the summer of , luther had warned his congregation against trusting to indulgences, and he did not conceal his aversion to the system, whilst admitting his doubts and ignorance as to some important questions on the subject. he knew that these opinions and objections would grieve the heart of his sovereign; for frederick, who with all his sincere piety, still shared the exaggerated veneration of the middle ages for relics, and had formed a rich collection of them in the church of the castle and convent at wittenberg, which he was always endeavouring to enrich, rejoiced at the pope's lavish offer of indulgences to all who at an annual exhibition of these sacred treasures should pay their devotions at the nineteen altars of this church. a few years before he had caused a 'book of relics' to be printed, which enumerated upwards of five thousand different specimens, and showed how they represented half a million days of indulgence. luther relates how he had incurred the elector's displeasure by a sermon preached in his castle church against indulgences: he preached, however, again before the exhibition held in february . the honour and interest, moreover, of his university had to be considered, for that church was attached to it, the professors were also dignitaries of the convent, and the university benefited by the revenues of the foundation. [illustration: fig. l .--the castle church. (from the wittenberg book of relics, : the hill in the background is an addition by the artist.)] luther was then, as he afterwards described himself, a young doctor of divinity, ardent, and fresh from the forge. he was burning to protest against the scandal. but as yet he restrained himself and kept quiet. he wrote, indeed, on the subject to some of the bishops. some listened to him graciously; others laughed at him; none wished to take any steps in the matter. he longed now to make known to theologians and ecclesiastics generally his thoughts about indulgences, his own principles, his own opinions and doubts, to excite public discussion on the subject, and to awake and maintain the fray. this he did by the ninety-five latin theses or propositions which he posted on the doors of the castle church at wittenberg, on october , , the eve of all saints' day and of the anniversary of the consecration of the church. these theses were intended as a challenge for disputation. such public disputations were then very common at the universities and among theologians, and they were meant to serve as means not only of exercising learned thought, but of elucidating the truth. luther headed his theses as follows:-- _'disputation to explain the virtue of indulgences._-in charity and in the endeavour to bring the truth to light, a disputation on the following propositions will be held at wittenberg, presided over by the reverend father martin luther.... those who are unable to attend personally may discuss the question with us by letter. in the name of our lord jesus christ. amen.' it was in accordance with the general custom of that time that, on the occasion of a high festival, particular acts and announcements, and likewise disputations at a university, were arranged, and the doors of a collegiate church were used for posting such notices. the contents of these theses show that their author really had such a disputation in view. he was resolved to defend with all his might certain fundamental truths to which he firmly adhered. some points he considered still within the region of dispute; it was his wish and object to make these clear to himself by arguing about them with others. recognising the connection between the system of indulgences and the view of penance entertained by the church, he starts with considering the nature of true christian repentance; but he would have this understood in the sense and spirit taught by christ and the scriptures, as, indeed, staupitz had first taught it to him. he begins with the thesis 'our lord and master jesus christ, when he says repent, desires that the whole life of the believer should be one of repentance.' he means, as the subsequent theses express it, that true inward repentance, that sorrow for sin and hatred of one's own sinful self, from which must proceed good works and mortification of the sinful flesh. the pope could only remit his sin to the penitent so far as to declare that god had forgiven it. thus then the theses expressly declare that god forgives no man his sin without making him submit himself in humility to the priest who represents him, and that he recognises the punishments enjoined by the church in her outward sacrament of penance. but luther's leading principles are consistently opposed to the customary announcements of indulgences by the church. the pope, he holds, can only grant indulgences for what the pope and the law of the church have imposed; nay, the pope himself means absolution from these obligations only, when he promises absolution from all punishment. and it is only the living against whom those punishments are directed which the church's discipline of penance enjoins: nothing, according to her own laws, can be imposed upon those in another world. further on, luther declares, 'when true repentance is awakened in a man, full absolution from punishment and sin comes to him without any letters of indulgence.' at the same time he says that such a man would willingly undergo self-imposed chastisement, nay, he would even seek and love it. still, it is not the indulgences themselves, if understood in the right sense, that he wishes to be attacked, but the loose babble of those who sold them. blessed, he says, be he who protests against this, but cursed be he who speaks against the truth of apostolic indulgences. he finds it difficult, however, to praise these to the people, and at the same time to teach them the true repentance of the heart. he would have them even taught that a christian would do better by giving money to the poor than by spending it in buying indulgences, and that he who allows a poor man near him to starve draws down on himself, not indulgences, but the wrath of god. in sharp and scornful language he denounces the iniquitous trader in indulgences, and gives the pope credit for the same abhorrence for the traffic that he felt himself. christians must be told, he says, that if the pope only knew of it, he would rather see st. peter's church in ashes, than have it built with the flesh and bones of his sheep. agreeably with what the preceding theses had said about the true penitent's earnestness and willingness to suffer, and the temptation offered to a mere carnal sense of security, luther concludes as follows: 'away therefore with all those prophets who say to christ's people "peace, peace!" when there is no peace, but welcome to all those who bid them seek the cross of christ, not the cross which bears the papal arms. christians must be admonished to follow christ their master through torture, death, and hell, and thus through much tribulation, rather than by a carnal feeling of false security, hope to enter the kingdom of heaven. the catholics objected to this doctrine of salvation advanced by luther, that by trusting to god's free mercy and by undervaluing good works, it led to moral indolence. but on the contrary, it was to the very unbending moral earnestness of a christian conscience, which, indignant at the temptations offered to moral frivolity, to a deceitful feeling of ease in respect to sin and guilt, and to a contempt of the fruits of true morality, rebelled against the false value attached to this indulgence money, that these theses, the germ, so to speak, of the reformation, owed their origin and prosecution. with the same earnestness he now for the first time publicly attacked the ecclesiastical power of the papacy, in so far namely as, in his conviction, it invaded the territory reserved to himself by the heavenly lord and judge. this was what the pope and his theologians and ecclesiastics could least of all endure. on the same day that these theses were published, luther sent a copy of them with a letter to the archbishop albert, his 'revered and gracious lord and shepherd in christ.' after a humble introduction, he begged him most earnestly to prevent the scandalising and iniquitous harangues with which his agents hawked about their indulgences, and reminded him that he would have to give an account of the souls entrusted to his episcopal care. the next day he addressed himself to the people from the pulpit, in a sermon he had to preach on the festival of all saints. after exhorting them to seek their salvation in god and christ alone, and to let the consecration by the church become a real consecration of the heart, he went on to tell them plainly, with regard to indulgences, that he could only absolve from duties imposed by the church, and that they dare not rely on him for more, nor delay on his account the duties of true repentance. chapter ii. the controversy concerning indulgences. anyone who has heard that the great movement of the reformation in germany, and with it the founding of the evangelical church, originated in the ninety-five theses of luther, and who then reads these theses through, might perhaps be surprised at the importance of their results. they referred, in the first place, to only one particular point of christian doctrine, not at all to the general fundamental question as to how sinners could obtain forgiveness and be saved, but merely to the remission of punishments connected with penance. they contained no positive declaration against the most essential elements of the catholic theory of penance, or against the necessity of oral confession, or of priestly absolution, and such subjects; they presupposed, in fact, the existence of a purgatory. much of what they attacked, not one of the learned theologians of the middle ages or of those times had ever ventured to assert; as, for instance, the notion that indulgences made the remission of sins to the individual complete on the part of god. moreover, the ruling principles of the theology of the day, which defended the system of indulgences, though resting mainly on the authority of the great scholastic teacher thomas aquinas, were not adopted by other scholastics, and had never been erected into a dogma by any decree of the church. theologians before luther, and with far more acuteness and penetration than he showed in his theses, had already assailed the whole system of indulgences. and, in regard to any idea on luther's part of the effects of his theses extending widely in germany, it may be noticed that not only were they composed in latin, but that they dealt largely with scholastic expressions and ideas, which a layman would find it difficult to understand. nevertheless the theses created a sensation which far surpassed luther's expectations. in fourteen days, as he tells us, they ran through the whole of germany, and were immediately translated and circulated in german. they found, indeed, the soil already prepared for them, through the indignation long since and generally aroused by the shameless doings they attacked; though till then nobody, as luther expresses it, had liked to bell the cat, nobody had dared to expose himself to the blasphemous clamour of the indulgence-mongers and the monks who were in league with them, still less to the threatened charge of heresy. on the other hand, the very impunity with which this traffic in indulgences had been maintained throughout german christendom, had served to increase from day to day the audacity of its promoters. ranged on the side of these doctrines of thomas aquinas, the chief mainstay of this trade, stood the whole powerful order of the dominicans. and to this order tetzel himself, the sub-commissioner of indulgences, belonged. already other doctrines of the pope's authority, of his power over the salvation of the human soul, and the infallibility of his decisions, had been asserted with ever-increasing boldness. the mediaeval writings of thomas aquinas had conspicuously tended to this result. and a climax had just been reached at a so-called general council, which met at rome shortly after luther's visit there, and continued its sittings for several years. tetzel, who hitherto had only made himself notorious as a preacher, or rather as a bawling mountebank, now answered luther with two series of theses of his own, drawn up in learned scholastic form. one conrad wimpina, a theologian of the university of frankfort-on-the-oder, whom the archbishop albert had recommended, assisted tetzel in this work. the university of frankfort immediately made tetzel doctor of theology, and thus espoused his theses. three hundred dominican monks assembled round him while he conducted an academical disputation upon them. the doctrines he now advanced were the doctrines of thomas aquinas. but at the same time he took care to make the question of the pope's position and power the cardinal point at issue; he and his patrons knew well enough, that for luther, who in his theses had touched upon this question so significantly though so briefly, this was the most fatal blow that he could deal. 'christians must be taught,' he declared, 'that in all that relates to faith and salvation, the judgment of the pope is absolutely infallible, and that all observances connected with matters of faith on which the papal see has expressed itself, are equivalent to christian truths, even if they are not to be found in scripture.' with distinct reference to his opponent, but without actually mentioning him by name, he insists that whoever defends heretical error must be held to be excommunicated, and if he fails within a given time to make satisfaction, incurs by right and law the most frightful penalties. furthermore, he argued--and this has always been held up against luther and protestantism--that if the authority of the church and pope should not be recognised, every man would believe only what was pleasing to himself and what he found in the bible, and thus the souls of all christendom would be imperilled. luther's theses now found another assailant, and one stronger even than tetzel, in the person of a dominican and thomist, one sylvester mazolini of prierio (prierias), master of the sacred palace at rome, and a confidant of the pope. he too, like tetzel, based his chief contention on the question of papal authority, and was the first to carry that contention to an extreme. the pope, he said, is the church of rome; the romish church is the universal christian church; whoever disputes the right of the romish church to act entirely as she may, is a heretic. in this way he treated as contemptuously as he could the obscure german, whose theses, that 'bite like a cur,' as he expressed it, he only wished to dismiss with all despatch. another dominican, james van hoogstraten, prior at cologne, who had already figured as the prime zealot in the affair about reuchlin, which he was still prosecuting, now demanded, in his preface to a pamphlet on that subject, that luther should be sent to the stake as a dangerous heretic. but a far more important, and to luther an utterly unexpected opponent, appeared in the person of john eck, professor at the university of ingolstadt, and canon at eichstädt. he was a man of very extensive learning in the earlier and later scholastic theology of the church; he was a sharp-witted and ready controversialist, and he knew how to use his weapons in disputations. he was fully conscious of these gifts, and made a bold push to advance himself by their means, whilst troubling himself very little in reality about the high and sacred issues involved in the dispute. he sought to keep on friendly and useful relations with other circles than those of scholastic theology, such as with learned humanists, and a short time before, with luther himself and his colleague carlstadt, to whom he had been introduced through a jurist of nüremberg named scheuerl. luther, after the publication of his theses, had written a friendly letter to eck. what then was his surprise to find himself attacked by eck in a critical reply entitled 'obelisks.' the tone of his remarks was as wounding, coarse, and vindictive as their substance was superficial. they aimed a well-meditated blow, by stigmatising luther's propositions as bohemian poison, mere hussite heresy. eck, when reproached for such a breach of friendship, declared that he had written the book for his bishop of eichstädt, and not with any view of publication. luther himself, loud as was his call to battle in his theses, had still no intention of engaging in a general contest about the leading principles of the church. he had not yet realised the whole extent and bearings of the question about indulgences. referring afterwards to the rapid circulation of his theses through germany, and to the fame which his onslaught had earned him, he says, 'i did not relish the fame, for i myself was not aware of what there was in the indulgences, and the song was pitched too high for my voice.' people far and wide were proud of the man who spoke out so boldly in his theses, while the multitude of doctors and bishops kept silence; but he still stood alone before the public, confronting the storm which he had aroused against himself. he did not conceal the fact, that now and then he felt strange and anxious about his position. but he had learned to take his stand singly and firmly on the word of scripture, and on the truth which god therein revealed to him and brought home to his conviction. he was only the more strengthened in that conviction by the replies of his opponents; for he must well have been amazed at their utter want of scriptural reference to disprove his conclusions, and at the blind subservience with which they merely repeated the statements of their scholastic authorities. the arrogant reply of prierias, his opponent of highest rank, seemed to him particularly poor. in confident words luther assures his friends of his conviction that what he taught was the purest theology, that what he upheld and his opponents attacked, was a revelation direct from god. he knew too, that, in the words of st. paul, he had to preach what to the holiest of the jews was a stumbling-block, and to the wisest of the greeks foolishness. he was none the less ready to do so, that jesus christ, his lord, might say of him, as he said once of that apostle, 'i will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake.' luther's enemies in the romish church have thought to see in these words an instance of boundless self-assertion on the part of an individual subject. from henceforth luther, while pursuing with unabated zeal his active duties at the university and in the pulpit at wittenberg, and taking up his pen again and again to write short pamphlets of a simple and edifying kind, occupied himself untiringly with controversial writings, with the object partly of defending himself against attacks, partly of establishing on a firm basis the principles he had set forth, and of further investigating and making plain the way of true christian knowledge. he first addressed himself to german christendom, in german, in his 'sermon on indulgences and grace.' his inward excitement is shown by the vehemence and ruggedness of expression which now and henceforth marked his polemical writings. it recalls to mind the tone then commonly met with not only among ordinary monks, but even in the controversies of theologians and learned men, and in which luther's own opponents, especially that high roman theologian, had set him the example. in luther we see now, throughout his whole method of polemics, as we shall see still more later on, a mighty, vulcanic, natural power breaking forth, but always regulated by the humblest devotion to the lofty mission that his conscience has imposed upon him. even in his most vehement outbursts we never fail to catch the tender expressions of a christian warmth and fervour of the heart, and a loftiness of language corresponding to the sacredness of the subject. in the midst of these labours and controversies, luther had to undertake a journey in the spring of (about the middle of april) to a chapter general of his order at heidelberg, where, according to the rules, a new vicar was chosen after a triennial term of office. his friends feared the snares that his enemies might have prepared for him on the road. he himself did not hesitate for a moment to obey the call of duty. the elector frederick, who owed him at least a debt of gratitude for having helped to keep his territory free from the rapacious tetzel, but who, both now and afterwards, conscientiously held aloof from the contest, gave proof on this occasion of his undiminished kindness and regard for him, in a letter he addressed to staupitz. he writes as follows:--'as you have required martin luder to attend a chapter at heidelberg, it is his wish, although we grudge giving him permission to leave our university, to go there and render due obedience. and as we are indebted to your suggestion for this excellent doctor of theology, in whom we are so well pleased, ... it is our desire that you will further his safe return here, and not allow him to be delayed.' he also gave luther cordial letters of introduction to bishop laurence of wurzburg, through whose town his road passed, and to the count palatine wolfgang, at heidelberg. from both of these, though many had already declaimed against him as a heretic, he met with a most friendly and obliging reception. his relations, moreover, at heidelberg with his fellow-members of the order, and, above all, with staupitz, remained unclouded. staupitz was re-elected here as vicar of the order; the office of provincial vicar passed from luther to john lange, of erfurt, his intimate friend and fellow-thinker. the question about indulgences had not entered at all into the business of the chapter. but at a disputation held in the convent, according to custom, luther presided, and wrote for it some propositions embodying the fundamental points of his doctrines concerning the sinfulness and powerlessness of man, and righteousness, through god's grace, in christ, and against the philosophy and theology of aristotelian scholasticism. he attracted the keen interest of several young inmates of the convent who afterwards became his coadjutors, such as john brenz, erhardt schnepf, and martin butzer. they marvelled at his power of drawing out the meaning from the scriptures, and of speaking not only with clearness and decision, but also with refinement and grace. thus his journey served to promote at once his reputation and his influence. on his return to wittenberg on may , after an absence of five weeks, he hastened to complete a detailed explanation in latin of the contents of his theses, under the title of 'solutions,' the greatest and most important work that he published at this period of the contest. the most valuable fruit of the controversy so far as regards luther and his later work, and evidence of which is given in these 'solutions,' was the advance he had made, and had been compelled to make, in the course of his own self-reasoning and researches. new questions presented themselves: the inward connection of the truth became gradually manifest: new results forced themselves upon him: his anxiety to solve his difficulties still continued. luther in his theses, when speaking of the call of jesus to repentance, had never indeed admitted that the sacrament of penance enjoined by the church, with auricular confession and the penances and satisfactions imposed by the priest, was based on god's command or the authority of the bible. he now openly acknowledged and declared that these ecclesiastical acts were not enjoined by christ at all, but solely by the pope and the church. the contest about the indulgences granted by the pope in respect of these acts, opened up now the doctrine of the so-called treasures of the church, on which the pope drew for his bounty. luther, while conceding to the pope the right of dispensing indulgences in the sense understood by himself, guarded himself against admitting that the merits of christ constituted that treasure, and so should be disposed of by the pope in this manner: the dispensation of indulgences rested simply on the papal power of the keys. it was now objected to him that herein he was going counter to an express and duly recorded declaration of a pope, clement vi., namely, that the merits of christ were undoubtedly to be dispensed in indulgences. luther, who in his theses against the abuse of indulgences had abstained as yet from propounding anything which might be inconsistent with the ascertained meaning of the pope, now insisted without hesitation on this contradiction. that papal pronouncement, he declared, did not bear the character of a dogmatic decree, and a distinction was to be drawn between a decree of the pope and its acceptance by the church through a council. how then, luther proceeded to inquire, should the christian obtain forgiveness of sin, reconciliation with god, righteousness before god, peace and holiness in god? and in answering this question he reverted to the key-note of his doctrine of salvation, which he had begun to preach before the contest about indulgences commenced. he had already declared that salvation came through faith; in other words, through heartfelt trust in god's mercy, as announced by the bible, and in the saviour christ. how was that consistent with the acts of ecclesiastical penance, such as absolution in particular, which must be obtained from the priest? luther now declared that god would assuredly allow his offer of forgiveness to be conveyed to those who longed for it, by his commissioned servant of the church, the priest, but that the assurance of such forgiveness must lean simply on the promise of god, by virtue and on behalf of whom the priest performed his office. and at the same time he declared that this promise could be conveyed to a troubled christian by any brother-christian, and that full forgiveness would be granted to him if he had faith. no enumeration of particular sins was necessary for that end; it was enough if the repentant and faithful yearning for the word of mercy was made known to the priest or brother from whom the message of comfort was sought. hence it followed, on the one hand, that priestly absolution and the sacrament availed nothing to the receiver unless he turned with inward faith to his god and saviour, received with faith the word spoken to him, and through that word let himself be raised to greater faith. it followed also, on the other hand, that a penitent and faithful christian, holding fast to that word, to whom the priest should arbitrarily refuse the absolution he looked for, could, in spite of such refusal, participate in god's forgiveness to the full. herewith was broken at once the most powerful bond by which the dominant church enslaved the souls to the organs of her hierarchy. luther has humbled man to the lowest before god, through whose grace alone the sinner, in meek and believing trustfulness, can be saved. but in god and through this grace he teaches him to be free and certain of salvation. christ, he says, has not willed that man's salvation should lie in the hand or at the pleasure of a man. as for the outward acts and punishments which the church and the pope imposed, he did not seek to abolish them. in this external province at least he recognised in the pope a power originating direct from god. here, in his opinion, the christian was bound to put up with even an abuse of power and the infliction of unjust punishment. the whole contest turned ultimately on the question as to who should determine disputes about the truth, and where to seek the highest standard and the purest source of christian verity. gradually at first, and manifestly with many inward struggles on the part of luther, his views and principles gained clearness and consistency. even within the catholic church the doctrine as to the highest authority to be recognised in questions of belief and conduct was by no means so firmly established as is frequently represented by both protestants and roman catholics. the doctrine of the infallibility of the pope, and of the absolute authority attaching thereby to his decisions, however confidently asserted by the admirers of aquinas and accepted by the popes, was not erected into a dogma of the roman catholic church until . the other theory, that even the pope can err, and that the supreme decision rests with a general council, had been maintained by theologians whom, at the same time, no pope had ever ventured to treat as heretics. it was on the ground of this latter theory that the university of paris, then the first university in europe, had just appealed from the pope to a general council. in germany opinions were on the whole divided between this and the theory of papal absolutism. again, the view that neither the decisions of a council nor of a pope were _ipso facto_ infallible, but that an appeal therefrom lay to a council possibly better informed, had already been advanced with impunity by writers of the fifteenth century. the only point as to which no doubt was expressed, was that the decisions of previous general councils, acknowledged also by the pope, contained absolutely pure divine truth, and that the christian universal church could never fall into error; but even then, with reference to this church, the question still remained as to who or what was her true and final representative. luther now followed what he found to be the teaching of the bible, so far as that teaching presented itself to his own independent and conscientious research, and as, traced home in the new testament and especially in the epistles of st. paul, it shaped itself to his perception. but for all this, he would not yet abandon his agreement with the church of which he was a member. the very man whom eck had branded as full of 'bohemian poison,' complained of the bohemian brethren or moravians for exalting themselves in their ignorance above the rest of christendom. a thomist indeed, who to him was only a scholastic among others, he fearlessly opposed; but still we find no expression of a thought that the church, assembled at a general council, had ever erred, nor even that any future council could pronounce an erroneous decision upon the present points in dispute. nay, he awaits the decision of such a council against the charges of heresy already brought against him, though without ever admitting his readiness, if such a council should assemble, to submit beforehand and unconditionally to its decision, whatever it might be. above and before any such decision he held firm to the authority of his own conviction: his conscience, he said, would not allow him to yield from that resolve; he was not standing alone in this contest, but with him stood the truth, together with all those who shared his doubts as to the virtue of indulgences. still, while rejecting the doctrine of the infallibility of the popes, it was a hard matter for luther to reproach them also with actual error in their decisions. we have seen how necessity forced him to do so in the case of clement vi. towards the existing head of the church he desired to remain, as far as possible, in concord and subjection. it was not for mere appearance' sake, that in his ninety-five theses he represented his own view of indulgences as being also that of the pope. he hoped, at all events, and wished with all his heart that it was so; and later on, towards the close of his life, he tells us how confidently he had cherished the expectation that the pope would be his patron in the war against the shameless vendors of indulgences. even after those hopes had failed, he spoke of leo x. with respect as a man of good disposition and an educated theologian, whose only misfortune was that he lived in an atmosphere of corruption and in a vicious age. he was none the less assured of his divine credentials as the supreme earthly shepherd of christendom, and the depositary of all canonical power. the duty of humility and obedience, impressed on him to excess as a monk, must, no less than the fear of the possible dangers and troubles in store for himself and his christian brethren, have made luther shrink from the thought of having actually to testify and fight against him. he ventured to dedicate his 'solutions' to the pope himself. the letter of may , , in which he did this, shows the peculiar, anomalous, and untenable position in which he now found himself placed. he is horrified, he says, at the charges of heresy and schism brought against himself. he who would much prefer to live in peace, had no wish to set up any dogmas in his theses, provoked as they were by a public scandal, but simply in christian zeal, or, as others might have it, in youthful ardour, to invite men to a disputation, and his present desire was to publish his explanation of them under the patronage and protection of the pope himself. but at the same time he declares that his conscience was innocent and untroubled, and he adds with emphatic brevity, 'retract i cannot.' he concludes by humbly casting himself at the pope's feet with the words, 'give me life or death, accept or reject me as you please.' he will recognise the papal voice as that of the lord jesus himself. he will, if worthy of death, not flinch from it. but that declaration of his, which he could not retract, must stand. chapter iii. luther at augsburg before caietan. appeal to a council. the task that luther had now undertaken lay heavy upon his soul. he was sincerely anxious, whilst fighting for the truth, to remain at peace with his church, and to serve her by the struggle. pope leo, on the contrary, as was consistent with his whole character, treated the matter at first very lightly, and when it threatened to become dangerous, thought only how, by means of his papal power, to make the restless german monk harmless. two expressions of his in these early days of the contest are recorded. 'brother martin,' he said, 'is a man of a very fine genius, and this outbreak the mere squabble of envious monks;' and again, 'it is a drunken german who has written the theses; he will think differently about them when sober.' three months after the theses had appeared, he ordered the vicar-general of the augustinians to 'quiet down the man,' hoping still to extinguish easily the flame. the next step was to institute a tribunal for heretics at rome, for luther's trial: what its judgment would be was patent from the fact that the single theologian of learning among the judges was sylvester prierias. before this tribunal luther was cited on august ; within sixty days he was to appear there at rome. friend and foe could well feel certain that they would look in vain for his return. papal influence, meanwhile, had been brought to bear on the elector frederick, to induce him not to take the part of luther, and the chief agent chosen for working on the elector and the emperor maximilian was the papal legate, cardinal thomas vio of gäeta, called caietan, who had made his appearance in germany. the university of wittenberg, on the other hand, interposed on behalf of their member, whose theology was popular there, and whose biblical lectures attracted crowds of enthusiastic hearers. he had just been joined at wittenberg by his fellow-professor philip melancthon, then only twenty-one years old, but already in the first rank of greek scholars, and the bond of friendship was now formed which lasted through their lives. the university claimed that luther should at least be tried in germany. luther expressed the same wish through spalatin to his sovereign. he now also answered publicly the attack of prierias upon his theses, and declared not only that a council alone could represent the church, but that even a decree of council might err, and that an act of the church was no final evidence of the truth of a doctrine. being threatened with excommunication, he preached a sermon on the subject, and showed how a christian, even if under the ban of the church, or excluded from _outward_ communion with her, could still remain in true _inward_ communion with christ and his believers, and might then see in his excommunication the noblest merit of his own. the pope, meanwhile, had passed from his previous state of haughty complacency to one of violent haste. already, on august , thus long before the sixty days had expired, he demanded the elector to deliver up this 'child of the devil,' who boasted of his protection, to the legate, to bring away with him. this is clearly shown by two private briefs from the pope, of august and , the one addressed to the legate, the other to the head of all the augustinian convents in saxony, as distinguished from the vicar of those congregations, staupitz, who already was looked on with suspicion at borne. these briefs instructed both men to hasten the arrest of the heretic; his adherents were to be secured with him, and every place where he was tolerated laid under the interdict. so unheard of seemed this conduct of the pope, that protestant historians would not believe in the genuineness of the briefs; but we shall soon see how caietan himself refers to the one in his possession. other and general relations, interests, and movements of the ecclesiastical and political life of the german nation now began to exercise an influence, direct or indirect, upon the history of luther and the development of the struggles of the reformation, and even caused the pope himself to moderate his conduct. whilst questions of the deepest kind about the means of salvation, and the grounds and rules of christian truth, had been opened up for the first time by luther during the contest about indulgences, the abuses, encroachments, and acts of tyranny committed by the pope on the temporal domain of the church, and closely affecting the political and social life of the people, had long been the subject of bitter complaints and vigorous remonstrances throughout germany. these complaints and remonstrances had been raised by princes and states of the empire, who would not be silenced by any theories or dogmas about the divine authority and infallibility of the pope, nor crushed by any mere sentence of excommunication. and in raising them they had made no question of the divine right of the papacy. was it not natural that, in the indignation excited by their wrongs, they should turn to the man who had laid the axe to the root of the tree which bore such fruit, and at least consider the possibility of profiting by his work? luther, on his part, showed at first a singularly small acquaintance with the circumstances of their complaints, and seemed hardly aware of the loud protests raised so long on this subject at the diets. but with the question of indulgences the field of his experience broadened in this respect. the care he evinced in this matter for the care of souls and true christian morality made him the ally of all those who were alarmed at the vast export of money to rome, about which he had already said in his theses that the christian sheep were being regularly fleeced. in another respect, also, the ecclesiastical policy of the papal see was closely interwoven with the political condition and history of germany. if in theory the pope claimed to control and confirm the decrees even of the civil power, in practice he at least attempted to assert and maintain an omnipresent influence. and with regard to germany it was all-important to him that the empire should not become so powerful as to endanger his authority in general and his territorial sovereignty in italy. however loftily the popes in their briefs proclaimed their immutable rights, derived from god, and their plenary power, and took care to let theologians and jurists advance such pretensions, they understood clearly enough in their practical conduct to adjust those relations to the rules of political or diplomatic necessity. in the summer of a diet was held at augsburg, at which the papal legate attended. the pope was anxious to obtain its consent to the imposition of a heavy tax throughout the empire, to be applied ostensibly for the war against the turks, but alleged to be wanted in reality for entirely other objects. the emperor maximilian, now old and hastening to his end, was endeavouring to secure the succession of his grandson charles, and caietan's chief task was to exert his influence with maximilian and the elector frederick to bring luther into their disfavour. the archbishop albert, who had been hit so hard by luther's attack on the traffic in indulgences, was solemnly proclaimed cardinal by order of the pope. of maximilian it might fairly have been expected that, after his many experiences and contests with the popes, he would at least protect luther from the worst, however unlikely it might be that he should entertain the idea of effecting, by his help, a great reform in the national church. he did indeed express his wish to pfeffinger, a counsellor of the elector, that his prince should take care of the monk, as his services might some day be wanted. but he supported the pope in the matter of the tax, and hoped to gain him for his own political ends. he opposed luther also in his attack on indulgences, on the ground that it endangered the church, and that he was resolved to uphold the action taken by the pope. this demand for a tax, however, was received with the utmost disfavour both by the diet and the empire; and a long-cherished bitterness of feeling now found expression. an anonymous pamphlet was circulated, from the pen of one fischer, a prebendary of wiirzburg, which bluntly declared that the avaricious lords of rome only wished to cheat the 'drunken germans,' and that the real turks were to be looked for in italy. this pamphlet reached wittenberg and fell into the hands of luther, whom now for the first time we hear denouncing 'roman cunning,' though he only charged the pope himself with allowing his grasping florentine relations to deceive him. the diet seized the opportunity offered by this demand for a tax, to bring up a whole list of old grievances; the large sums drawn from german benefices by the pope under the name of annates, or extorted under other pretexts; the illegal usurpation of ecclesiastical patronage in germany, the constant infringement of concordats, and so on. the demand itself was refused, and in addition to this, an address was presented to the diet from the bishop and clergy of liege, inveighing against the lying, thieving, avaricious conduct of the romish minions, in such sharp and violent tones that luther, on reading it afterwards when printed, thought it only a hoax, and not really an episcopal remonstrance. this was reason enough why caietan, to avoid increasing the excitement, should not attempt to lay hands on the wittenberg opponent of indulgences. the elector frederick, from whose hands caietan would have to demand luther, was one of the most powerful and personally respected princes of the empire, and his influence was especially important in view of the election of a new emperor. this prince went now in person to caietan on luther's behalf, and caietan promised him, at the very time that the brief was on its way to him from rome, that he would hear luther at augsburg, treat him with fatherly kindness, and let him depart in safety. luther accordingly was sent to augsburg. it was an anxious time for himself and his friends when he had to leave for that distant place, where the elector, with all his care, could not employ any physical means for his protection, and to stand accused as a heretic before that papal legate who, from his own theological principles, was bound to condemn him, caietan being a zealous thomist like prierias, and already notorious as a champion of indulgences and papal absolutism. 'my thoughts on the way,' said luther afterwards, 'were now i must die; and i often lamented the disgrace i should be to my dear parents.' he went thither in humble garb and manner. he made his way on foot till within a short distance of augsburg, when illness and weakness overcame him, and he was forced to proceed by carriage. another younger monk of wittenberg accompanied him, his pupil leonard baier. at nüremberg he was joined by his friend link, who held an appointment there as preacher. from him he borrowed a monk's frock, his own being too bad for augsburg. he arrived here on october . the surroundings he now entered, and the proceedings impending over him, were wholly novel and unaccustomed. but he met with men who received him with kindness and consideration; several of them were gentlemen of augsburg favourable to him, especially the respected patrician, dr. conrad peutinger, and two counsellors of the elector. they advised him to behave with prudence, and to observe carefully all the necessary forms, to which as yet he was a stranger. luther at once announced his arrival to caietan, who was anxious to receive him without delay. his friends, however, kept him back until they had obtained a written safe-conduct from the emperor, who was then hunting in the environs. in the meantime, a distinguished friend of caietan, one urbanus of serralonga, tried to persuade him, in a flippant, and, as luther thought, a downright italian manner, to come forward and simply pronounce six letters,--_revoco_--i retract. urbanus asked him with a smile if he thought his sovereign would risk his country for his sake. 'god forbid!' answered luther. 'where then do you mean to take refuge?' he went on to ask him. 'under heaven,' was luther's reply. to melancthon luther wrote as follows: 'there is no news here, except that the town is full of talk about me, and everybody wants to see the man who, like a second herostratus, has kindled such a flame. remain a man as you are, and instruct the youth aright. i go to be sacrificed for them and for you, if god so will. for i will rather die, and, what is the hardest fate, lose for ever the sweet intercourse with you, than revoke anything that it was right for me to say.' on october luther received the letter of safe-conduct, and the next day he appeared before caietan. humbly, as he had been advised, he prostrated himself before the representative of the pope, who received him graciously and bade him rise. the cardinal addressed him civilly, and with a courtesy luther was not accustomed to meet with from his opponents; but he immediately demanded him, in the name and by command of the pope, to retract his errors, and promise in future to abstain from them and from everything that might disturb the peace of the church. he pointed out, in particular, two errors in his theses; namely, that the church's treasure of indulgences did not consist of the merits of christ, and that faith on the part of the recipient was necessary for the efficacy of the sacrament. with respect to the second point, the religious principles upon which luther based his doctrine were altogether strange and unintelligible to the scholastic standpoint of caietan; mere tittering and laughter followed luther's observations, and he was required to retract this thesis unconditionally. the first point settled the question of papal authority. on this, the cardinal-legate took his chief stand on the express declaration of pope clement: he could not believe that luther would venture to resist a papal bull, and thought he had probably not read it. he read him a vigorous lecture of his own on the paramount authority of the pope over council, church, and scripture. as to any argument, however, about the theses to be retracted, caietan refused from the first to engage in it, and undoubtedly he went further in that direction than he originally desired or intended. his sole wish was, as he said, to give fatherly correction, and with fatherly friendliness to arrange the matter. but in reality, says luther, it was a blunt, naked, unyielding display of power. luther could only beg from him further time for consideration. luther's friends at augsburg, and staupitz, who had just arrived there, now attempted to divert the course of these proceedings, to collect other decisions of importance bearing on the subject, and to give him the opportunity of a public vindication. accompanied therefore by several jurists friendly to his cause, and by a notary and staupitz, he laid before the legate next day a short and formal statement of defence. he could not retract unless convicted of error, and to all that he had said he must hold as being catholic truth. nevertheless he was only human, and therefore fallible, and he was willing to submit to a legitimate decision of the church. he offered, at the same time, publicly to justify his theses, and he was ready to hear the judgment of the learned doctors of basle, freiburg, louvain, and even paris upon them. caietan with a smile dismissed luther and his proposals, but consented to receive a more detailed reply in writing to the principal points discussed on the previous day. on the morrow, october , luther brought his reply to the legate. but in this document also he insisted clearly and resolutely from the commencement on those very principles which his opponents regarded as destructive of all ecclesiastical authority and of the foundations of christian belief. he spoke with crucial emphasis of the trouble he had taken to interpret the words of pope clement in a scriptural sense. the papal decrees might err, and be at variance with holy writ. even the apostle peter himself had once to be reproved (galat. ii. sqq.) for 'walking not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel;' surely then his successor was not infallible. every faithful believer in christ was superior to the pope, if he could show better proofs and grounds of his belief. still he entreated caietan to intercede with leo x., that the latter might not harshly thrust out into darkness his soul, which was seeking for the light. but he repeated that he could do nothing against his conscience: one must obey god rather than man, and he had the fullest confidence that he had scripture on his side. caietan, to whom he delivered this reply in person, once more tried to persuade him. they fell into a lively and vehement argument; but caietan cut it short with the exclamation 'revoke.' in the event of luther not revoking or submitting to judgment at rome, he threatened him and all his friends with excommunication, and whatever place he might go to with an interdict; he had a mandate from the pope to that effect already in his hands. he then dismissed him with the words, 'revoke, or do not come again into my presence.' nevertheless he spoke in quite a friendly manner after this to staupitz, urging him to try his best to convert luther, whom he wished well. luther, however, wrote the same day to his friend spalatin, who was with the elector, and to his friends at wittenberg, telling them that he had refused to yield. the legate, he said, had behaved with all friendliness of manner to staupitz in his affair, but neither staupitz nor himself trusted the italian when out of sight. if caietan should use force against him, he would publish the written reply he gave him. caietan might call himself a thomist, but he was a muddle-headed, ignorant theologian and christian, and as clumsy in giving judgment in the matter as a donkey with a harp. luther added further that an appeal would be drawn up for him in the form best fitted to the occasion. he further hinted to his wittenberg friends at the possibility of his having to go elsewhere in exile; indeed, his friends already thought of taking him to paris, where the university still rejected the doctrine of papal absolutism. he concluded this letter by saying that he refused to become a heretic by denying that which had made him a christian; sooner than do that, he would be burned, exiled, or cursed. the appeal of which luther here spoke, was 'from the pope ill-informed to the same when better informed.' on october he submitted it, formally prepared, to a public notary. while staupitz and link, warned to consult their personal safety, and despairing of any good result, left augsburg, luther still remained there. he even addressed on october a letter to caietan, conceding to him the utmost he thought possible. moved, as he said, by the persuasions of his dear father staupitz and his brother link, he offered to let the whole question of indulgences rest, if only that which drove him to this tragedy were put a stop to; he confessed also to having been too violent and disrespectful in dispute. in after years he said to his friends, when referring to this concession, that god had never allowed him to sink deeper than when he had yielded so much. the next day, however, he gave notice of his appeal to the legate, and told him he did not wish longer to waste his time in augsburg. to this letter he received no answer. luther waited, however, till the th. he and his augsburg patrons began to suspect whether measures had not already been taken to detain him. they therefore had a small gate in the city wall opened in the night, and sent with him an escort well acquainted with the road. thus he hastened away, as he himself described it, on a hard-trotting hack, in a simple monk's frock, with only knee-breeches, without boots or spurs, and unarmed. on the first day he rode eight miles, as far as the little town of monheim. as he entered in the evening an inn and dismounted in the stable, he was unable to stand from fatigue, and fell down instantly among the straw. he travelled thus on horseback to wittenberg, where he arrived well and joyful, on the anniversary of his ninety-five theses. he had heard on the way of the pope's brief to caietan, but he refused to think it could be genuine. his appeal, meanwhile, was delivered to the cardinal at augsburg, who had it posted by his notary on the doors of the cathedral. from augsburg luther was followed by a letter from caietan to the elector, full of bitter complaints against him. he had formed, he said, the highest hopes of his spiritual recovery, and had been grievously disappointed in him; the elector, for his own honour and conscience' sake, must now either send him to rome or, at least, expel him from his territory, since measures of fatherly kindness had failed to make him acknowledge his error. frederick, after waiting four weeks, returned a quiet answer, showing how the conduct of luther quite agreed with his own view of the matter. he would have expected that no recantation would have been required of luther till the matter in dispute had been satisfactorily examined and explained. there were a number of learned men, also, at foreign universities, from whom he could not yet have learned with certainty that luther's doctrine was unchristian; while, to say the least, it was chiefly those whose personal and financial interests were affected by it that had become his opponents. he would propose therefore that the judgment of several universities should be obtained, and have the matter disputed at a safe place. luther, however, to whom the elector showed this letter, at once declared himself ready to go into exile, but would not be deterred from publishing new declarations or taking further steps. he had a report of his conference with caietan printed, with a justification of himself to the readers. and in this he advanced propositions against the papacy which entirely shook its whole foundation. already, in the solutions to his theses, he had incidentally, and without attracting further notice by the remark, spoken of a time when the papacy had not yet acquired supremacy over the universal church, thereby contradicting what the romish church maintained and had made into a dogma, namely, that the papal see possessed this primacy by original institution through christ, and by means of immutable divine right. he now expressed this opinion as a positive proposition. the papal monarchy, he declared, was only a divine institution in the sense in which every temporal power, advanced by the progress of historical development, might be called so also. 'the kingdom of god cometh not with observation.' without waiting for an answer direct from rome, luther now abandoned all thoughts of success with leo x. on november he formally and solemnly appealed from the pope to a general christian council. by so doing he anticipated the sentence of excommunication which he was daily expecting. with rome he had broken for ever, unless she were to surrender her claims and acquisitions of more than a thousand years. after once the first restraints of awe were removed with which luther had regarded the papacy, behind and beyond the matter of the indulgences, and he had learned to know the papal representative at augsburg, and made a stand against his demands and menaces, and escaped from his dangerous clutches, he enjoyed for the first time the fearless consciousness of freedom. he took a wider survey around him, and saw plainly the deep corruption and ungodliness of the powers arrayed against him. his mind was impelled forward with more energy as his spirit for the fight was stirred within him. even the prospect that he might have to fly, and the uncertainty whither his flight could be, did not daunt or deter him. his thought was how he could throw himself with more freedom into the struggle, if no longer hampered by any obligations to his prince and his university. writing at that time to his friend link, to inform him of his new publications and his appeal, he invited his opinion as to whether he was not right in saying that the antichrist of whom st. paul speaks ( thess. ii.), ruled at the papal court. 'my pen,' he went on to say, 'is already giving birth to something much greater. i know not whence these thoughts come. the work, as far as i can see, has hardly yet begun, so little reason have the great men at rome for hoping it is finished.' again, while informing spalatin, through whom the elector always urged him to moderation, of new papal edicts and regulations aimed against him, he declared, 'the more those romish grandees rage and meditate the use of force, the less do i fear them. all the more free shall i become to fight against the serpents of rome. i am prepared for all, and await the judgment of god.' he was really prepared for exile or flight at any moment. at wittenberg his friends were alarmed by rumours of designs on the part of the pope against his life and liberty, and insisted on his being placed in safety. flight to france was continually talked of; had he not followed in his appeal a precedent set by the university of paris? we certainly cannot see how he could safely have been conveyed thither, or where, indeed, any other and safer place could have been found for him. some urged that the elector himself should take him into custody and keep him in a place of safety, and then write to the legate that he held him securely in confinement and was in future responsible for him. luther proposed this to spalatin, and added, 'i leave the decision of this matter to your discretion; i am in the hands of god and of my friends.' the elector himself, anxious also in this respect, arranged early in december a confidential interview between luther and spalatin at the castle of lichtenberg. he also, as luther reported to staupitz, wished that luther had some other place to be in, but he advised him against going away so hastily to france. his own wish and counsel, however, he refrained as yet from making known. luther declared that at all events, if a ban of excommunication were to come from rome, he would not remain longer at wittenberg. on this point also the prince kept secret his resolve. chapter iv. miltitz and the disputation at leipzig, with it results. the rumours of the dangers that threatened luther from rome had a good foundation. a new agent from there had now arrived in germany, the papal chamberlain, charles von miltitz. his errand was designed to remove the chief obstacle to summoning the wittenberg heretic to rome, or imprisoning him there, namely, the protection afforded him by his sovereign. miltitz was of a noble saxon family, himself a saxon subject by birth, and a friend of the electoral court. he brought with him a high token of favour for the elector. the latter had formerly expressed a wish to receive the golden rose; a symbol solemnly consecrated by the pope himself, and bestowed by his ambassadors on princely personages to this day, for services rendered to the church or the papal see. the bearer of this decoration was miltitz, and on october , , he was furnished with a whole armful of papal indulgences. above all, he took with him two letters of leo x. to frederick. the elector, his beloved son, so ran the first missive, was to receive the most holy rose, anointed with the sacred chrism, sprinkled with scented musk, consecrated with the apostolic blessing, a gift of transcendent worth and the symbol of a deep mystery, in remembrance and as a pledge of the pope's paternal love and singular good-will, conveyed through an ambassador specially appointed by the pope, and charged with particular greetings on that behalf &c. &c. such a costly gift, proffered him by the church through her pontiff, was intended to manifest her joy at the redemption of mankind by the precious blood of jesus christ, and the rose was an appropriate symbol of the quickening and refreshing body of our redeemer. these high-sounding and long-winded expressions showed very plainly the real object of the pope. the divine fragrance of this flower was so to permeate the inmost heart of frederick, the 'beloved son,' that he being filled with it, might with pious mind receive and cherish in his noble breast those matters which miltitz would explain to him, and whereof the second brief made mention; and thus the more fervently comprehend the pope's holy and pious longing, agreeably to the hope he placed in him. the other letter, however, after referring to the call for aid against the turks, goes on to speak of luther. from satan himself came this son of perdition, who was preaching notorious heresy, and that chiefly in frederick's own land. inasmuch as this diseased sheep must not be suffered to infect the heavenly flock, and as the honour and conscience of the elector also must needs be stained by his presence, miltitz was commissioned to take measures against him and his associates, and frederick was exhorted in the name of the lord to assist him with his authority and favour. papal instructions in writing to the same effect were given to miltitz for spalatin, as frederick's private secretary, and for degenhard pfeffinger, a counsellor of the elector. to spalatin in particular, the most trusted adviser of frederick in religious matters, it was represented, how horrible was the heretical audacity of this 'son of satan,' and how he imperilled the good name of the elector. in like manner the chief magistrate of wittenberg was required by letter to give assistance to miltitz, and enable him to execute freely and unhindered the pope's commands against the heretic luther, who came of the devil. miltitz took with him similar injunctions for a number of other towns in germany, to ensure safe passage for himself and his prisoner to rome, in the event of his arresting luther. he was armed, it was said, with no less than seventy letters of this kind. as regards the rose, miltitz had strict orders to make the actual delivery of it to frederick depend wholly on his compliance with caietan's advice and will. it was deposited first of all in the mercantile house of the fuggers at augsburg. this public precaution was taken, to prevent miltitz from parting with the precious gift in haste or from too anxious a desire for the thanks and praise in prospect, before there were reasonable grounds for hoping that it had served its purpose. towards the middle of december a papal bull, issued on november , was published by caietan in germany, which finally laid down the doctrine of indulgences in the sense directly combated by luther, and, although not mentioning him by name, threatened excommunication against all who shared the errors which had lately been promulgated in certain quarters. so utterly did the pope appear to have set his face against all reconciliation or compromise. and yet, as the event showed, room was left for miltitz in his secret instructions to try another method, according as circumstances might dictate. miltitz, after having crossed the alps, sought an interview first with caietan in southern germany, and, as the latter had gone to the emperor in austria, he paid a visit to his old friend pfeffinger, at his home in bavaria. continuing his journey with him, he arrived on december at the town of gera, and from there announced his arrival to spalatin, who was at altenburg. on the way he had had constant opportunities of noticing, both among learned men and the common people, signs of sympathy for the man against whom his mission was directed, and a feeling hostile to rome, of which those at rome neither knew nor cared to know. he was a young and clever man, full of the enjoyment of life, who knew how to mix and converse with people of every kind, and even to touch now and then on the situation and doings at rome which were exciting such lively indignation. tetzel also, whom miltitz summoned to meet him, wrote complaining that the people in germany were so excited against him by luther, that his life would not be safe on the road. miltitz accordingly, with his usual readiness, resolved speedily on an attempt to make luther harmless by other means. after paying his visit to the elector at altenburg, he agreed to treat with him there in a friendly manner. the remarkable interview with luther took place at spalatin's house at altenburg in the first week of the new year. miltitz feigned the utmost frankness and friendliness, nay, even cordiality. he himself declared to luther, that for the last hundred years no business had caused so much trouble at rome as this one, and that they would gladly there give ten thousand ducats to prevent its going further. he described the state of popular feeling as he had found it on his journey; three were for luther where only one was for the pope. he would not venture, even with an escort of , men, to carry off luther through germany to rome. 'oh, martin!' he exclaimed, 'i thought you were some old theologian, who had carried on his disputations with himself, in his warm corner behind the stove. now i see how young, and fresh, and vigorous you are.' whilst plying him with exhortations and reproaches about the injury he did to the romish church, he accompanied them with tears. he fancied by this means to make him his confidant and conformable to his schemes. luther, however, soon showed him that he could be his match in cleverness. he refrained, he tells us, from letting miltitz see that he was aware what crocodile's tears they were. indeed he was quite prepared, as he had been before under the menaces of a papal ambassador, so now under his persuasions and entreaties, to yield all that his conscience allowed, but nothing beyond, and then quietly to let matters take their own course. in the event of miltitz withdrawing his demand for a retractation, luther agreed to write a letter to the pope, acknowledging that he had been too hasty and severe, and promising to publish a declaration to german christendom urging and admonishing reverence to the romish church. his cause, and the charges brought against him, might be tried before a german bishop, but he reserved to himself the right, in case the judgment should be unacceptable, of reviving his appeal to the church in council. personally he desired to desist from further strife, but silence must also be imposed on his adversaries. having come to this point of agreement, they partook of a friendly supper together, and on parting miltitz bestowed on him a kiss. in a report given of this conference to the elector, luther expressed the hope that the matter by mutual silence might 'bleed itself to death,' but added his fear that, if the contest were prolonged, the question would grow larger and become serious. he now wrote his promised address to the people. he bated not an inch from his standpoint, so that, even if he should for the future let the controversy rest, he might not appear to have retracted anything. he allowed a value to indulgences, but only as a recompense for the 'satisfaction' given by the sinner, and adding that it was better to do good than to purchase indulgences. he urged the duty of holding fast in christian love and unity, and notwithstanding her faults and sins, to the romish church, in which st. peter and st. paul and hundreds of martyrs had shed their blood, and of submitting to her authority, though with reference only to external matters. propositions going beyond what was here conceded he wished to be regarded as in no way affecting the people or the common man. they should be left, he said, to the schools of theology, and learned men might fight the matter out between them. his opponents indeed, if they had admitted what luther declared in this address, would have had to abandon their main principles, for to them the doctrine that indulgences and church authority meant far more than was here stated was a truth indispensable for salvation. luther wrote his letter to the pope on march , . it began with expressions of the deepest personal humility, but differed significantly in the quiet firmness of its tone from his other letter of the previous year to leo x. quietly, but as resolutely, he repudiated all idea of retracting his principles. they had already, through the opposition raised by his enemies, been propagated far and wide, beyond all his expectations, and had sunk into the hearts of the germans, whose knowledge and judgment were now more matured. if he let himself be forced to retract them he would give occasion to accusation and revilement against the romish church; for the sake of her own honour he must refuse to do so. as for his battle against indulgences, his only thought had been to prevent the mother church from being defiled by foreign avarice, and that the people should not be led astray, but learn to set love before indulgences. meanwhile, on january , maximilian had died. he was the last national emperor with whom germany was blessed; in character a true german, endowed with rich gifts both mental and physical, a man of high courage and a warm heart, thoroughly understanding how to deal with high and low, and to win their esteem and love. by luther too we hear him often spoken of afterwards in terms of affectionate remembrance: he tells us of his kindness and courtesy to everyone, of his efforts to attract around him trusty and capable servants from all ranks, of his apt remarks, of his tact in jest and in earnest; further of the troubles he had in his government of the empire and with his princes, of the insolence he had to put up with from the italians, and of the humour with which he speaks of himself and his imperial rule. 'god,' said he on one occasion, 'has well ordered the temporal and spiritual government; the former is ruled over by a chamois-hunter, and the latter by a drunken priest' (pope julius). he called himself a king of kings, because his german princes only acted like kings when it suited them. with the lofty ideas and projects which he cherished as sovereign, he stood before the people as a worthy representative of imperialism, even though his eyes may have been fixed in reality more on his own family and the power of his dynasty, than on the general interests of the empire. the ecclesiastical grievances of the german nation, which we heard of at the diet of , had long engaged his lively sympathy, though he deemed it wiser to abstain from interfering. he had an opinion on these matters and on the necessary reforms drawn up by the humanist wimpheling. nay, he had once, in his contest with pope julius, worked to bring about a general reforming council. the question forces itself on the mind--however vain such an inquiry may be from a historical point of view--what turn luther's great work, and the fortunes of the german nation and church would have taken, if maximilian had identified his own imperial projects with the interests for which luther contended, and thus had come forward as the leader of a great national movement. as it was, maximilian died without ever having realised more of the importance of this monk than was shown by his remark about him, already noticed, at augsburg. [illustration: fig. l .--the emperor maximilian. (from his portrait by albert dürer.)] his death served to increase the respect which the pope found it necessary to show to the elector frederick. for, pending the election of a new emperor, the latter was administrator of the empire for northern germany, and the issue of the election depended largely on his influence. on june maximilian's grandson, king charles of spain, then nineteen years of age, was chosen emperor. he was a stranger to german life and customs, as the german people and the reformer must constantly have had to feel. for the pope, however, these considerations were of further import, for in his dealings with the new emperor he had to proceed at least with caution, since the latter was aware that he had done his best to prevent his election. on the other hand, charles was under an obligation to the elector, being mainly indebted to him for his crown, and unable to come himself immediately to germany to accept his rule. miltitz meanwhile had further prosecuted his scheme, without revealing his own ultimate object. he chose for a judge of luther's cause the archbishop of treves, and persuaded him to accept the office. early in may he had an interview with caietan at coblentz, the chief town of the archiepiscopal diocese, and now summoned luther to appear there before the archbishop. but miltitz took good care to say nothing about the opinions entertained at rome of his negotiations with luther. would luther venture from his refuge at wittenberg without the consent of his faithful sovereign, who himself evinced suspicion in the matter, and set forth in the dark, so to speak, on his long journey to the two ambassadors of the pope? he would be held a fool, he wrote to miltitz, if he did; moreover, he did not know where to find the money for the journey. what took place between rome and miltitz in this affair was altogether unknown to luther, as it is to us. whilst this attempt at a mediation--if such it could be called--remained thus in abeyance, a serious occasion of strife had been prepared, which caused the seemingly muffled storm to break out with all its violence. luther's colleague, carlstadt, who at first, on the appearance of luther's theses, had viewed them with anxiety, but who afterwards espoused the new wittenberg theology, and pressed forward in that path, had had a literary feud since with eck, on account of his attacks upon luther. the latter, meeting eck at augsburg in october, arranged with him for a public disputation in which eck and carlstadt could fight the matter out. luther hoped, as he told eck and his friends, that there might be a worthy battle for the truth, and the world should then see that theologians could not only dispute but come to an agreement. thus then, at least between him and eck, there seemed the prospect of a friendly understanding. the university of leipzig was chosen as the scene of the disputation. duke george of saxony, the local ruler, gave his consent, and rejected the protest of the theological faculty, to whom the affair seemed very critical. when, however, towards the end of the year, eck published the theses which he intended to defend, luther found with astonishment that they dealt with cardinal points of doctrine, which he himself, rather than carlstadt, had maintained, and that carlstadt was expressly designated the 'champion of luther.' only one of these theses related to a doctrine specially defended by carlstadt, namely, that of the subjection of the will in sinful man. among the other points noticed was the denial of the primacy of the romish church during the first few centuries after christ. eck had extracted this from luther's recent publications; so far as carlstadt was concerned, he could not have read or heard a word of such a statement. luther fired up. in a public letter addressed to carlstadt he observed that eck had let loose against him, in reality, the frogs or flies intended for carlstadt, and he challenged eck himself. he would not reproach him for having so maliciously, uncourteously, and in an untheological manner charged carlstadt with doctrines to which he was a stranger; he would not complain of being drawn himself again into the contest by a piece of base flattery on eck's part towards the pope; he would merely show that his crafty wiles were well understood, and he wished to exhort him in a friendly spirit, for the future, if only for his own reputation, to be a little more sensible in his stratagems. eck might then gird his sword upon his thigh, and add a saxon triumph to the others of which he boasted, and so at length rest on his laurels. let him bring forth to the world what he was in labour of; let him disgorge what had long been lying heavy on his stomach, and bring his vainglorious menaces at length to an end. luther was anxious, indeed, apart from this special reason, to be allowed to defend in a public disputation the truth for which he was called a heretic; he had made this proposal in vain to the legate at augsburg. he now demanded to be admitted to the lists at leipzig. he wished in particular, to take up the contest, openly and decisively, about the papal primacy. his friends just on this point grew anxious about him. but he prepared his weapons with great diligence, studying thoroughly the ecclesiastical law-books and the history of ecclesiastical law, with which until now he had never occupied himself so much. herein he found his own conclusions fully confirmed. nay, he found that the tyrannical pretensions of the pope, even if more than a thousand years old, derived their sole and ultimate authority from the papal decretals of the last four centuries. arrayed against the theory of that primacy were the history of the previous centuries, the authority of the council of nice in , and the express declaration of scripture. this he stated now in a thesis, and announced his opinion in print. we have already noticed the high importance of this historical evidence in regard to matters of belief, as well as to the entire conception of christian salvation, and of the true community or church of christ. the real essence of the church is shown not to depend on its constitution under a pope. and the course of history, wherein god allowed the christians of the west to come under the external authority of the pope, just as people come to be under the rule of different princes, in no way subjected, or should subject, the whole of christendom to his dominion. the millions of eastern christians, who are not his subjects, and who are therefore condemned by the pope as schismatics, are all, as luther now distinctly declares, none the less members of christendom, of the church, of the body of christ. participation in salvation does not exist only in the community of the church of rome. for christendom collectively, or the universal church, there is no other head but christ. luther now also discovered and declared that the bishops did not receive their posts over individual dioceses and flocks until after the apostolic period; the episcopate therefore ceases to be an essential and necessary element of the church system. what, then, is really essential for the continuance of the church, and how far does it extend? luther answers this question with the fundamental principle of evangelical protestantism. the church, he says, is not at rome only, but there, and there only, where the word of god is preached and believed in; where christian faith, hope, and charity are alive, where christ, inwardly received, stands before a united christendom as her bridegroom. this universal church, says luther, is the one intended by the creed, when it says 'i believe in a holy catholic church, the communion of saints.' the mere external power which the popedom exercised in its government of the church, in the imposition of outward acts and penalties--appeared, so far, to luther a matter of indifference in respect to religion and the salvation of souls. but it was another and more serious matter with regard to the claim to divine right asserted for that power by the papacy, and to its extension over the soul and conscience, over the community of the faithful, nay, over the fate of departed souls. here luther saw an invasion of the rights reserved by god to himself, and a perversion of the true conditions of salvation, as established by christ and testified in scripture. here he saw a human potentate and tyrant, setting himself up in the place of christ and god. he shuddered, so he wrote to his friends, when, in reading the papal decretals, he looked further into the doings of the popes, with their demands and edicts, into this smithy of human laws, this fresh crucifixion of christ, this ill-treatment and contempt of his people. as previously he had said that antichrist ruled at the papal court, so now, in a letter of march , , he wrote privately to spalatin, 'i know not whether the pope is antichrist himself, or one of his apostles,' so antichristian seemed to him the institution of the papacy itself, with its principles and its fruits. of these decretals he says in another letter: 'if the death-blow dealt to indulgences has so damaged the see of rome, what will it do when, by the will of god, its decretals have to breathe their last? not that i glory in victory, trusting to my own strength, but my trust is in the mercy of god, whose wrath is against the edicts of man.' [illustration: fig. .--duke george of saxony. (from an old woodcut.)] luther earnestly entreated duke george to allow him to take part in the disputation. his elector, who no doubt was personally desirous of a public, free, and learned treatment of the questions at issue, had already given him his permission. luther's understanding with miltitz presented no obstacle, since the silence required as a condition on the part of his opponents, had never been observed, nor indeed had ever been enjoined or recommended either by miltitz or any other authorities of the church. his application, nevertheless, to the duke was referred to eck for his concurrence, and the latter let him wait in vain for an answer. at last the duke drew up a letter of safe-conduct for carlstadt and all whom he might bring with him, and under this designation luther was included. he might safely trust himself to george's word as a man and a prince. the whole disputation was opposed and protested against from the outset by the bishop of merseburg, the chancellor of the university of leipzig and the spiritual head of the faculty of theology. the project must have been inadmissible in his eyes from the mere fact that eck's theses revived the controversy about indulgences, which was supposed to have been settled once and for ever by the papal bull. he appealed to this pronouncement as a reason for not holding it. inasmuch as the disputation took place, in spite of this protest, with the duke's consent, it became an affair of all the more importance. duke george himself took an active interest in the matter. his was a robust, upright, and sturdy character. he was a staunch and faithful upholder of the ecclesiastical traditions in which he had grown up; it was difficult for him to extend his views. but he was honestly interested in the truth. he wished that his own men of learning might have a good scuffle in the lists for the truth's sake. on hearing of the objections of the leipzig theologians to the disputation, his remark was, 'they are evidently afraid to be disturbed in their idleness and guzzling, and think that whenever they hear a shot fired, it has hit them.' an unusually large audience being expected for the disputation, he had the large hall of his castle of pleissenburg cleared and furnished for the occasion. he commissioned two of his counsellors to preside, and was anxious himself to be present. how much depended on the impression which the disputation itself, and luther with it, should produce upon him! on june the wittenbergers entered leipzig, with carlstadt at their head. an eye-witness has described the scene: 'they entered at the grimma gate, and their students, two hundred in number, ran beside the carriages with pikes and halberds, and thus accompanied their professors. dr. carlstadt drove first; after him, dr. martin and philip (melancthon) in a light basket carriage with solid wooden wheels (rollwagen); none of the wagons were either curtained or covered. just as they had passed the town-gate and had reached the churchyard of st. paul, dr. carlstadt's carriage broke down, and the doctor fell out into the dirt; but dr. martin and his _fidus achates_ philip, drove on.' meanwhile, an episcopal mandate, forbidding the disputation on pain of excommunication, had been nailed up on the church doors, but no heed was paid to it. the magistrate even imprisoned the man who posted the bill for having done so without his permission. before commencing the disputation, certain preliminary conditions were arranged. the proceedings were to be taken down by notaries. eck had opposed this, fearing to be hindered in the free use of his tongue, and not liking to have all his utterances in debate so exactly defined. the protocols, however, were to be submitted to umpires charged to decide the result of the disputation, and were to be published after their verdict was announced. in vain had both luther and carlstadt, who refused to bind themselves to this decision, opposed this stipulation. the duke, however, insisted on it, as a means of terminating judicially the contest. early on the morning of june the disputation was opened with all the worldly and spiritual solemnity that could be given to a most important academical event. first came an address of welcome in the hall, spoken by the leipzig professor, simon pistoris; then a mass in the church of st. thomas, whither the assembly repaired in a procession of state; then a still grander procession to the pleissenburg, where a division of armed citizens was stationed as a guard of honour; then a long speech on the right way of disputing, delivered in the castle hall by the famous peter schade mosellanus, a professor at leipzig and a master of latin eloquence; and lastly the chanting three times of the latin hymn, 'come, holy ghost,' the whole assembly kneeling. at two o'clock the disputation between eck and carlstadt began. they were placed opposite each other in pulpits. a host of theologians and learned laymen had flocked together to the scene. from wittenberg had come the pomeranian duke barnim, then rector of the university. prince george of anhalt, then a young leipzig student, and afterwards a friend of luther, was there. duke george of saxony frequently attended the proceedings, and listened attentively. his court jester is said to have appeared with him, and a comic scene is mentioned as having occurred between him and eck, to the great diversion of the meeting. frederick the wise was represented by one of his counsellors, hans von planitz. eck and carlstadt contended for four days, from june to july , on the question of free will and its relations to the operation of the grace of god. it was a wearisome contest, with disconnected texts from scripture and passages from old teachers of the church, but without any of the lively and free animation of moral and religious spirit, which, in luther's treatment of such questions, carried his hearers with him. in power of memory, as in readiness of speech, eck proved himself superior to his opponent. on carlstadt bringing books of reference with him, he got this disallowed, and had now the advantage that no one could check his own quotations. thus, confident of triumph, he proceeded to his contest with luther. luther meanwhile, on june , the day of st. peter and st. paul, had preached a sermon at the request of duke barnim at the castle of pleissenburg, wherein, referring to the gospel of the day, he treated, in a simple, practical, and edifying manner, of the main point of the disputation between eck and carlstadt, and at the same time of the point he himself was about to argue, namely, the meaning of the power of the keys granted to st. peter. in opposition to him, eck delivered four sermons in various churches of the town (none of which luther would have been allowed to preach in), and speaking of them afterwards he said, 'i simply stirred up the people to be disgusted with the lutheran errors.' the members of the leipzig university kept peevishly aloof from their brethren of wittenberg throughout the disputation, while paying all possible homage to eck. when luther one day entered a church, the monks who were conducting service hastily took away the monstrance and the elements, to avoid having them defiled by his presence. and yet he was afterwards reproached for neglecting to go to church at leipzig. in the hostelries where the wittenberg students lodged, such violent scenes occurred between them and their leipzig brethren, that halberdiers had to be stationed at the tables to keep order. duke george invited the heretic, together with eck and carlstadt, to his own table, and to a private audience as well. so frank and genial was he, and so intent on making himself acquainted with luther and his cause. luther spoke of him then as a good, pious prince, who knew how to speak in princely fashion. the duke, however, told him at that audience, that the bohemians entertained great expectations of him; and yet george, who on his mother's side was grand-son to podiebrad, king of bohemia, was anxious to have all taint of the hateful bohemian heresy most carefully avoided. on this point luther remarked to him that he knew well how to distinguish between the pipe and the piper, and was only sorry to see how accessible princes might be to the influence of foreign agitations. leipzig altogether must have been a strange and uncomfortable atmosphere for luther. on monday, july , he entered the lists with eck. on the morning of that day he signed the conditions, which had been arranged in spite of his protest; but he stated that, against the verdict of the judges, whatever it might be, he maintained the right of appeal to a council, and would not accept the papal curia as his judge. the protocol on this point ran as follows: 'nevertheless dr. martin has stipulated for his appeal, which he has already announced, and so far as the same is lawful, will in no wise abandon his claim thereto. he has stipulated further that, for reasons touching himself, the report of this disputation shall not be submitted for approval to the papal court.' [illustration: fig. .--luther. (from an engraving of cranach, in .)] the appearance of luther at this disputation has given occasion for the first description of his person which we possess from the pen of a contemporary. mosellanus, already mentioned, says of him in a letter: 'he is of middle stature, his body thin, and so wasted by care and study, that nearly all his bones may be counted. he is in the prime of life. his voice is clear and melodious. his learning and his knowledge of scripture are extraordinary; he has nearly everything at his fingers' ends. greek and hebrew he understands sufficiently well to give his judgment on the interpretation of the scriptures. in speaking, he has a vast store of subjects and words at his command; he is moreover refined and sociable in his life and manners; he has no rough stoicism or pride about him, and he understands how to adapt himself to different persons and times. in society he is lively and witty. he is always fresh, cheerful, and at his ease, and has a pleasant countenance, however hard his enemies may threaten him, so that one cannot but believe that heaven is with him in his great undertaking. most people however reproach him with wanting moderation in polemics, and with being more cutting than befits a theologian and one who propounds something new in sacred matters.' his ability as a disputant was afterwards acknowledged by eck, who in referring to this tourney, quoted aristotle's remark that when two men dispute together, each of whom has learned the art, there is sure to be a good disputation. eck is described by mosellanus as a man of a tall, square figure, with a voice fit for a public crier, but more coarse than distinct, and with nothing pleasant about it; with the mouth, the eyes, and the whole appearance of a butcher or soldier, but with a most remarkable memory. in power of memory and elocution he surpassed even luther; but in solidity and real breadth of learning, impartial men like pistoris gave the palm to luther. eck is said to have imitated the italians in his great animation of speech, his declamation, and gesticulations with his arms and his whole body. melancthon even said in a letter after the disputation, 'most of us must admire eck for his manifold and distinguished intellectual gifts.' later on he calls him, 'eckeckeck, the daws'-voice.' at any rate eck displayed a rare power and endurance in those leipzig days, and understood above all how to pursue with cleverness the real object he had in view in his contest with luther. the two began at once with that point which eck had singled out as the chief object of debate, and about which luther had advanced his boldest proposition, namely, the question of the papal power. [illustration: fig .--dr. john eck. (from an old woodcut.)] after lengthy discussions on the evidence of texts of scripture; on the old fathers of the church, to whom the papal supremacy was unknown; on the western church of middle ages, by whom that supremacy was acknowledged at an earlier period than luther would admit; on the non-subjection to rome of eastern christendom, to whom luther referred, and whom eck with a light heart put outside the pale of salvation, eck on the second day of the disputation passed, after due premeditation, from the ecclesiastical authorities he had quoted in favour of the divine right of the papal primacy, to the statements of the english heretic wicliffe, and the bohemian huss, who had denied this right, and had therefore been justly condemned. he was bound to notice them, he said, since, in his own frail and humble judgment, luther's thesis favoured in the highest degree the errors of the bohemians, who, it was reported, wished him well for his opinions. luther answered him as he had done in each case before. he condemned the separation of the bohemians from the catholic church, on the ground that the highest right derived from god was that of love and the spirit, and he repudiated the reproach which eck sought to cast upon him. but he declared at the same time that the bohemians on that point had never yet been refuted. and with perfect self-conviction and calm reflection he proceeded to assert that among the articles of huss some were fundamentally christian and evangelical, such as, for example, his statements that there was only one universal church (to which even greek christendom had always and still belonged), and that the belief in the supremacy of the church of rome was not necessary to salvation. no man, he added, durst impose upon a christian an article of belief which was antiscriptural; the judgment of an individual christian must be worth more than that of the pope or even of a council, provided he has a better ground for it. that moment, when luther spoke thus of the doctrines of huss, a heretic already condemned by a council and proscribed in germany, was the most impressive and important in the whole disputation. an eye-witness, who sat below duke george and barnim, relates that the duke, on hearing the words, shouted out in a voice heard by all the assembly, 'a plague upon it!' and shook his head, and put both hands to his sides. the whole audience, variously as they thought of the assertion, must have been fairly astounded. luther, it was true, had already stated in writing that a council could err. but now he declared himself for principles which a council, namely that of constance, solemnly appointed and unanimously recognised by the whole of western christendom, had condemned, and thus openly accused that council of error in a decision of the most momentous importance. nay more, that decision had been concurred in by the very men who, while recognising the papal primacy, strenuously defended against papal despotism the rights of general councils, and of the nations and states which they represented. the western catholic church entertained, as we have seen, a diversity of views as to the relative authority of the popedom, as an institution of christ, and that which appertained to councils. luther now, by denying the divine institution and authority of the papacy, seemed to have broken with all authority whatsoever existing in the church, and with every possible exercise of the same. luther himself does not appear to have considered at the moment this extent of his acknowledgment of the 'christian' character of some of huss's articles, nor to have adequately reflected on the attitude of direct opposition in which it placed him to the council of constance. when eck declared it 'horrible' that the 'reverend father' had not shrunk from contradicting that holy council, assembled by consent of all christendom, luther interrupted him with the words, 'it is not true that i have spoken against the council of constance.' he then went on to draw the inference that the authority of the council, if it erred in respect of those articles, was consequently fallible altogether. some days later, and after further consideration, luther produced four propositions of huss, which were perfectly christian, although they had been formally rejected by the council. he sought means, nevertheless, to preserve for the council its dignity. as for these rejected articles, he said, it had declared only some to be heretical, and others to be simply mistaken, and the latter, at all events, must not be counted as heresies--nay, he took the liberty of supposing that the former were interpolations in the text of the council's resolutions. he would grant, further, that the decisions of a council in matters of faith must at all times be accepted. and in order to guard himself against any misunderstanding and misconstruction, he once broke off from the latin, in which the whole disputation had been conducted, and declared in german that he in no way desired to see allegiance renounced to the romish church, but that the only question in dispute was whether its supremacy rested on divine right--that is to say, on direct divine institution in the new testament, or whether its origin and character were simply such as the imperial crown, for example, possessed in relation to the german nation. he was well aware how charges of heresy and apostasy were raised against him, and how industriously eck had promoted them. it was only with pain and inward struggles that he stood out, bible in hand, against the council of constance and such a general gathering of western christendom. but not a step would he go towards any recognition of the papacy as an institution resting on scripture. he insisted that even a council could not compel him to do this, or make an essential article of christian belief out of anything not found in the bible. again and again he declared that even a council could err. for five whole days they contested this main point of the disputation, without arriving at any further result. the other subjects of discussion, relating to purgatory, indulgences, and penance, were after this of very little importance. with regard to indulgences even eck now displayed striking moderation. the dispute on the correct conception of purgatory led to a new and important declaration by luther as to the power of the church in relation to scripture. eck quoted as biblical proof a passage from the apocryphal books of the old testament, which although not originally included in the records of the old covenant, had been accepted by the middle ages as of equal authority with the other biblical writings. for the first time luther now protested against the equal value thus assigned to them, and especially against the church conferring upon them an authority they did not possess. the disputation between eck and luther lasted till july . luther concluded his argument with the words: 'i am sorry that the learned doctor only dips into scripture as deep as the water-spider into the water--nay, that he seems to fly from it as the devil from the cross. i prefer, with all deference to the fathers, the authority of scripture, which i herewith recommend to the arbiters of our cause.' after this carlstadt and eck had only a short passage of arms. the disputation was to be concluded on the th, as duke george wished to receive the elector of brandenburg on a visit to the pleissenburg. with regard to the universities, to whom the report of the disputation was to be submitted, those agreed upon were paris and erfurt, but neither of the two would undertake so responsible a task. eck left the disputation with triumph, applauded by his friends and rewarded by duke george with favours and honours. he followed up his fancied victory by further exciting the people against luther, and pointing out to them in particular the sympathy between him and huss. he wrote even to the elector frederick from leipzig, proposing that he should have luther's books burnt. the two men henceforth and for ever were mutual enemies, with no dealings together but those of heated controversy in writing. eck's chief efforts were directed to securing luther's formal and public condemnation. at leipzig luther had been watched with the utmost suspicion. the common people had actually been told that there was something mysterious in the little silver ring he wore on his finger, very likely a small charm with the devil inside. it was even remarked on and wondered at that he carried a bunch of flowers in his hand, which he would look at and smell. from that time probably originated the saying of a devout old dame at leipzig, as published by one of his theological opponents, the old woman having once lived at eisleben with luther's mother, that her son martin was the fruit of an embrace by the devil. for real information, however, about luther at leipzig, and the impression he produced by his arguments, more is to be gathered from the effect of his public appearance there during this disputation, than from a whole heap of printed matter. we allude not only to the educated laity and men of learning, but to the mass of the people who shared in the excitement caused by this controversy. a few months later we hear an opponent complain that luther's teaching had given rise to so much squabbling, discord, and rebellion among the people, that 'there was absolutely not a town, village, or house, where men were not ready to tear each other to pieces on his account.' luther returned to wittenberg full of dejection. the time at leipzig had only been wasted; the disputation had been unworthy of the name; eck and his friends there had cared nothing whatever about the truth. eck, he said, had made more clamour in an hour than he or carlstadt could have done in a couple of years, and yet all the time the question at issue was one of peaceful and abstruse theology. his disappointment, however, did not refer, as people perhaps might have imagined, to the treatment his thesis on the papal primacy had met with, or to any embarrassment occasioned him on that account. on the contrary, while complaining of the unworthy character of the disputation, he excepted that particular thesis. he alluded rather to the superficiality and want of interest with which such important questions as justification by faith, and the sinfulness attaching even to the best works of man, were passed over or evaded. on all the points which he had wished to contend for and expound at leipzig, he now published further explanations. and with regard to the councils, he declared in still stronger terms than at leipzig, that they certainly might err and had erred even in the most important matters; one had no right to identify either them or the pope with the church. from this he proceeded to explain his true relations with the bohemians. the theologian jerome emser, a friend of eck, and a favourite of duke george, contributed in his own way to this end. he had had a hot discussion with luther before the disputation at leipzig, in which he reproached him with causing trouble in the church. he now prepared a remarkable public letter to a high catholic ecclesiastic at prague, of the name of zack. whilst asserting in it that the bohemian schismatics appealed to luther and had actually offered prayers and held services for him during the disputation, he announced, with feigned kindness to luther, that the latter, on the contrary, had eagerly repudiated at leipzig any fellowship with them, and had denounced their apostasy from rome. luther detected in all this, mere trickery and malice, and we also can only recognise in it a crafty attempt to ruin luther's position all round. if, says luther, he were to accept in silence the praise here meted out to him, he would seem to have retracted his whole teaching, and laid down his arms before eck; if, on the other hand, he were to disclaim it, he would be cried down at once as a patron of the bohemians, and charged with base ingratitude to emser. accordingly, in a small pamphlet, he broke out, full of wrath and bitterness, against emser, who replied to him in a similar tone. but he represented the case with great clearness. if his doctrines had pleased the bohemians, he would not retract them on that account. he had no desire to screen their errors, but he found on their side christ, the scriptures, and the sacraments of the church, and therewith a christian hatred of the worldliness, immorality, and arrogance of the romish clergy. nay, he rejoiced to think that his doctrines pleased them, and would be glad if they pleased jews and turks, and emser, who was enthralled in godless error, and even eck himself. letters were now already on the way to luther from two ecclesiastics of prague, paduschka and rossdalovicky, members of the utraquist hussite church, which in opposition to rome insisted on the sacramental cup being given to the laity. they assured luther of their joyful and prayerful sympathy with him in his struggle. one of them sent him a present of knives of bohemian workmanship, the other a writing of huss upon the church. luther accepted the presents with cordiality, and sent them his own writings in return. with regard to separation from the romish church, the experience of huss plainly showed him how impossible that church made it, even to one whose heart was heavy at the thought of leaving her, to remain in her communion. thus the contest at leipzig was now over, whilst in the meantime at frankfort-on-the-main, after the election of the new emperor, the elector frederick and the archbishop of treves consulted together about an examination of luther before the archbishop, as proposed by miltitz. both wished to postpone it till the diet, then about to be held. miltitz, however, notwithstanding the result of the disputation and the further declarations of luther, still clung to his plan of mediation. he arranged once more an interview with luther on october at liebenwerda, when the latter renewed his promise to appear before the archbishop, but he failed to induce the elector to let luther travel with him to the archbishop. for the delivery of the golden rose, when it at last took place, he was richly rewarded with money. but the fruitlessness of his negotiations with luther had become apparent. chapter v. luther's further work, writings, and inward progress, until . luther looked upon his disputation at leipzig as an idle waste of time. he longed to get back to his work at wittenberg. he remained, in fact, devoted with his whole soul to his official duties there, though to the historian, of course, his work and struggles in the broader and general arena of the church engage the most attention. he might well quarrel with the occasions that constantly called him out to it, as so many interruptions to his proper calling. his energy there in the pulpit was as constant as his energy in the professor's chair. he glowed with zeal to unfold the one truth of salvation from its original source, the scriptures, and to declare it and impress it on the hearts of his young pupils and his wittenberg congregation, of educated and uneducated, of great and small. but he also wished to lay it before his students as a truth for life. with this object, he continued active with his pen, both in the latin and the german languages. he was glad to turn to this from the questions of ecclesiastical controversy, which had formed the subject of his disputation, and of the writings referring to it. it was enough for him to show forth simply the merciful love of god and of the saviour christ, to point out the simple road of faith, and to destroy all trust in mere outward works, in one's own merit and virtue. only to this extent, and because the authority pretended by the church was opposed to this truth and this road to salvation, he was forced here also, and in face of his congregation, to wield the sword of his eloquence against that authority, and this he did with a zeal regardless of consequences. in all that he did, in his lectures as well as in his sermons, in his exposition of god's word in particular, as in his own polemics, he always threw his whole personality into the subject. we see him inwardly moved and often elated by the joyful message which he himself had learned, and had to announce to others, inspired by love to his fellow-christians, whom he would wish to help save, and zealous even to anger for the cause of his lord. at the same time, it cannot be denied that he was often carried away by the vehemence of his views, which saw at once in every opponent an uncompromising enemy to the truth; and that his naturally passionate temperament was often powerfully stirred, though even then his whole tone and demeanour was blended with outbursts of the noblest and the purest zeal. in his academical lectures luther still remained faithful to that path which he had struck out on entering the theological faculty. he wished simply to propound the revealed word of god, by explaining the books of the old and new testaments; though he took pains in these lectures, in which he devoted several terms to the study of a single book, to explain thoroughly and impressively the most important doctrines of christian faith and conduct. thus he occupied himself during the time of the contest about indulgences, and after the autumn of , with the epistle to the galatians, wherein he found comprised clearly and briefly the fundamental truth of salvation, the doctrine of the way of faith, of god's laws of requirements and punishments, and of gospel grace. he then turned anew to the psalms, dissatisfied with his own earlier exposition of them. his exposition of st. paul's epistle he had sent to the press whilst engaged in his preparations for the leipzig disputation. his opponents, he says here, might busy themselves with their much larger affairs, with their indulgences, their papal bulls, and the power of the church, and so on; he would retire to smaller matters, to the holy scriptures and to the apostle, who called himself not a prince of apostles, but the least of the apostles. he also now began the printing of his work on the psalms. crowds of listeners gathered around him; his audience at times numbered upwards of four hundred. during the three years following the outbreak of the quarrel about indulgences, the number of those who matriculated annually at the university increased threefold. luther wrote to spalatin that the number of students increased mightily, like an overflowing river; the town could no longer contain them, many had to leave again for want of dwellings. to this prosperity of the university melancthon especially contributed. he had been appointed, as we have already mentioned, first professor of greek by the elector, and in addition to the young theologians, he attracted a number of other students to his lectures. of still greater importance for luther and his work, was the personal friendship and community of ideas, convictions, and aspirations which had bound the two men together in close intimacy from their first acquaintance. their paths in life had hitherto been very different. philip schwarzerd, surnamed melancthon, born in of a burgher's family of the little town of bretten in the palatinate, had passed a happy youth, and harmoniously and peacefully developed into manhood. he had had from early life capable teachers for his education, and was under the protection of the great philologist reuchlin, who was a brother of his grandmother. he then showed gifts of mind wonderfully rich and early ripening. besides the classics, he learnt mathematics, astronomy, and law. he also studied the scriptures, grew to love them, and even when a youth had made himself familiar with their contents, without having had first to learn to know their worth by a heavy sense of inward need, by inward struggles or a long unsatisfied hunger of the soul. thus, at seventeen he was already master of arts, and at twenty-one was appointed professor at wittenberg. the young man, with an insignificant, delicate frame, and a shy, awkward demeanour, yet with a handsome, powerful forehead, an intellectual eye, and refined, thoughtful features, effaced at once, by his inaugural address, any doubts arising from his youthful appearance. [illustration: fig. .--melancthon. (from a portrait by dürer.)] in this speech, however, he already declared that the chief object of classical studies was to teach theologians to draw from the original fount of holy scripture. he himself delivered a lecture on the new testament immediately after one on homer. and it was the lutheran conception of the doctrine of salvation which he adopted in his own continued study of the bible. the year of his arrival at wittenberg he celebrated luther in a poem. he accompanied him to leipzig. during the disputation there he is said to have assisted his friend with occasional suggestions or notes of argument, and thereby to have roused the anger of eck. he now took the lowest theological degree of bachelor, to qualify himself for giving theological lectures on scripture. he who from early youth had enjoyed so abundantly the treasures of humanistic learning, and had won for himself the admiration of an erasmus, now found in this study of scripture a 'heavenly ambrosia' for his soul, and something much higher than all human wisdom. and already, in independent judgment on the traditional doctrines of the church, he not only kept pace with luther but even outwent him. it was he who attacked the dogma of transubstantiation, according to which in the mass the bread and wine of the sacrament are so changed by the consecration of the priest into the body and blood of our lord, that nothing really remains of their original substance, but they only appear to the senses to retain it. luther at once recognised with joy the marvellous wealth of talent and knowledge in his new colleague, whose senior he was by fourteen years, besides being far ahead of him in theological study and experience. we have seen, during luther's stay at augsburg, how closely his heart clung to melancthon and to the 'sweet intercourse' with him; we know of no other instance where luther formed a friendship so rapidly. the more intimately he knew him, the more highly he esteemed him. when eck spoke slightingly of him as a mere paltry grammarian, luther exclaimed, 'i, the doctor of philosophy and theology, am not ashamed to yield the point, if this grammarian's mind thinks differently to myself; i have done so often already, and do the same daily, because of the gifts with which god has so richly filled this fragile vessel; i honour the work of my god in him.' 'philip,' he said at another time, 'is a wonder to us all; if the lord will, he will beat many martins as the mightiest enemy to the devil and scholasticism;' and again, 'this little greek is even my master in theology.' such were luther's words, not uttered to particular friends of melancthon, in order to please them, nor in public speeches or poetry, in which at that time friends showered fulsome flattery on friends, but in confidential letters to his own most intimate friends, to spalatin, staupitz, and others. so willing and ready was he, whilst himself on the road to the loftiest work and successes, to give precedence to this new companion whom god had given him. luther also interested himself with spalatin to obtain a higher salary for melancthon, and thus keep him at wittenberg. in common with other friends, he endeavoured to induce him to marry; for he needed a wife who would care for his health and household better than he did himself. his marriage actually took place in , after he had at first resisted, in order to allow no interruption to his highest enjoyment, his learned studies. at the university luther was also busily engaged with the necessary preparations for many lectures that were not theological. he steadily persisted in his efforts to secure the appointment of a competent professor of hebrew. he also worked hard to get a qualified printer, the son of the printer letter at leipzig, to settle at the university, and set up there for the first time a press for three languages, german, latin, and greek. for everything of this kind that was submitted to the elector, who took a constant interest in the prosperity of the university, his friend spalatin was his confidential intermediary. as early as luther had expressed to him the wish and hope that wittenberg, in honour of frederick the wise, should, by a new arrangement of study, become the occasion and pattern for a general reform of the universities. in addition to his constant and arduous labours of various kinds, he took part also in the social intercourse of his colleagues, although he complained of the time he lost by invitations and entertainments. in the town church at wittenberg he continued his active duties not only on sundays but during the week. his custom was to expound consecutively in a course of sermons the old and new testaments, and he explained particularly to children and those under age, the lord's prayer and the ten commandments. this work alone, he once complained to spalatin, required properly a man for it and nothing else. these services he gave to the town congregation gratuitously. the magistracy were content to recognise them by trifling presents now and then; for instance, by a gift of money on his return from leipzig, where he had had to live on his own very scanty means. in simple, powerful, and thoroughly popular language, luther sought to bring home to the people who filled his church, the supreme truth he had newly gained. here in particular he employed his own peculiar german, as he employed it also in his writings. both he and melancthon formed a close personal intimacy with several worthy townsmen of wittenberg. the most prominent man among them, the painter lucas cranach, from bamberg, owner of a house and estate at wittenberg, the proprietor of an apothecary's and also of a stationer's business, besides being a member of the magistracy, and finally burgomaster, belonged to the circle of luther's nearest friends. luther took a genuine pleasure in cranach's art, and the latter, in his turn, soon employed it in the service of the reformation. [illustration: fig. l .--lucas cranach. (from a portrait by himself.)] while occupied thus in delivering simple and practical sermons to his congregation in the town, he continued to publish written works of the same character and purport, in addition to his labours in the field of learned ecclesiastical controversy, thus showing the love with which he worked for them at large in this matter. these writings were little books, tracts, so-called sermons. it did not disturb him, he once said, to hear daily of certain people who despised his poverty because he only wrote little books and german sermons for the unlearned laymen. 'would to god,' he said, 'i had all my life long and with all my power served a layman to his improvement; i should then be content to thank god, and would very willingly after that let all my little books perish. i leave it to others to judge whether writing large books and a great number of them constitutes art and is useful to christianity; i consider rather, even if i cared to write large books after their art, i might do that quicker, with god's help, than making a little sermon in my fashion. i have never compelled or entreated anyone to listen to me or read my sermons. i have given freely to the congregation of what god has given to me and i owe to them; whoever does not like his word, let him read and listen to others.' in this spirit he composed, after the leipzig disputation, a little consolatory tract for christians, full of reflection and wisdom. he dedicated it to the elector, an illness of whom had prompted him to write it. even his most bigoted opponents could not withhold their approbation of the work. luther's pupil and biographer mathesius, thought there had never been such words of comfort written before in the german language. in a similar strain luther wrote about preparation for dying, the contemplation of christ's sufferings, and other matters of like kind. he explained to the people in a few pages the ten commandments, the creed, and the lord's prayer. at the desire of the elector, conveyed to him through spalatin, and notwithstanding the difficulty he had in finding time for such a large work, he applied himself to a practical exposition of the epistles and gospels read in church, intended principally for the use of preachers. at the same time he made steady progress with his own scriptural researches, which led him away more and more from the main articles of the purely traditional doctrines of the church. and the light which dawned upon him in these studies he took pains to impart at once to his congregation. but it was no mere negative or hypercritical interest that led him on and induced him to write. in connection with the saving efficacy of faith, which he had gathered from the bible, new truths, full of import, unfolded themselves before him. on the other hand, such dogmas of the church as he found to have no warrant in scripture, nor to harmonise with the scriptural doctrine of salvation, frequently faded from his notice, and perished even before he was fully conscious of their hollowness. the new knowledge had ripened with him before the old husk was thrown away. thus he now learnt and taught others to understand anew the meaning of the christian sacrament of the lord's supper. the church of the middle ages beheld with wonder in this sacrament the miracle of transubstantiation. the body of our lord, moreover, here present as the object of adoration, was to serve above all as the bloodless repetition of the bloody sacrifice for sin on golgotha, to be offered to god for the good of christendom and mankind. to offer that sacrifice was the highest act which the priesthood could boast of, as being thought worthy to perform by god. this whole mysterious, sacred transaction was clothed in the mass, for the eye and ear of the members of the congregation, with a number of ritualistic forms. in giving them, moreover, the consecrated elements in the sacrament, the priest alone partook of the cup. luther, on the contrary, found the whole meaning of that institution of the departing saviour, according to his own words, 'take, eat, and drink,' in the blessed and joyful communion here prepared by him for the congregation of receivers, each one of whom was verily to partake of it in faith. here, as he taught in a sermon on the sacrament in , they were to celebrate and enjoy real communion; communion with the saviour, who feeds them with his flesh and blood; communion with one another, that they, eating of one bread, should become one cake, one bread, one body united in love; communion in all the benefits purchased by their saviour and head; and communion also in all gifts of grace bestowed upon his people, in all sufferings to be endured, and in all virtues alive in their hearts. above all, he appealed to christ's own words, that he had shed his blood for the forgiveness of sins. here at his holy supper, he wished to dispense this forgiveness, and, with it, eternal life to all his guests; he pledged it to them here by the gift of his own body. luther, but only incidentally, remarked in this sermon, when speaking of the cup: 'i should be well pleased to see the church decree in a general council, that communion in _both kinds_ should be given to the laity as to the priests.' even then he regarded as unfounded that idea of sacrifice at the mass which in his later writings he so strenuously denied and combated. at the same time he pointed out the sacrifice which christendom, and indeed every christian, must continually offer to god, namely, the sacrifice to god of himself and all that he possesses, offered with inward humility, prayer, and thankfulness. the question as to a change of the elements, which melancthon had already denied, luther passed by as an unnecessary subtlety. lastly, together with the sacrifice supposed to be offered by the priest, he dismissed also the notion of a peculiar priesthood; for with the real sacrifice offered by christians, as he understood it, all became priests. instead of the difference theretofore existing between priests and laymen, he would recognise no difference among christians but such as was conferred by the public ministration of god's word and sacrament. whilst discoursing in a sermon, in a similar manner, on the inner meaning of baptism, he passed from the vow of baptism to the vow of chastity, so highly prized in the catholic church. he admits this vow, but represents the former one as so immeasurably higher and all-embracing, as to deprive the church of her grounds for attaching such value to the latter. he enlarged on moral and religious life in general in a long sermon 'on good works,' which he dedicated early in to duke john, the brother of the elector. in clear and earnest language he explained how faith itself, on which everything depended, was a matter of innermost moral life and conduct, nay, the very highest work conformable to god's will; and further, how that same faith cannot possibly remain merely passive, but, on the contrary, the faithful christian must himself become pleasing to god, on whose grace he relies, must love him again, and fulfil his holy will with energy and activity in all duties and relations of life. these duties he proceeds to explain according to the ten commandments. he will not, however, have the conscience further laden with duties imposed by the church, for which no corresponding moral obligation exists. he turns then with earnest exhortation to rebuke certain common faults and crimes in the public life of his nation, the gluttony and drunkenness, the excessive luxury, the loose living, and the usury, which was then the subject of so much complaint. against this last practice he preached a special sermon, in which, agreeably with the older teaching of the church, he spoke of all interest taken for money as questionable, inasmuch as jesus had exhorted only to lending without looking for a return. the creditor, at any rate, he said, should take his share of the risks to which his capital, in the hands of the debtor, was exposed from accident or misadventure. the essence of the church of christ he placed in that inner communion of the faithful with one another and their heavenly head, on which he dwelt with such emphasis in connection with the sacrament of the lord's supper. for the stability and prosperity of this church he considered no externals necessary beyond the preaching of god's word and the administration of the sacraments, as ordained by christ,--no romish popedom, nor any other hierarchical arrangements. but in the same spirit of love and brotherly fellowship with which he embraced hussites, as well as the eastern christians who were denounced as schismatics, he still wished to hold fast to the visible community of the church of rome, declining to identify it with the corrupt romish curia. that love, he said, should make him assist and sympathise with the church, even in her infirmities and faults. he was anxious also to fulfil personally all the minor duties incumbent on him as a monk and a priest. and yet the higher obligations of his calling, that incessant activity in proclaiming the word, both by speech and writing, were of much greater importance in his eyes. he performed with diligence such duties as the regular repetition of prayers, singing, reading the _horae_, and never dreamed of venturing to omit them. he relates afterwards, how wonderfully industrious he had been in this respect. often, if he happened to neglect these duties during the week, he would make up for it in the course of the sunday from early morning till the evening, going without his breakfast and dinner. in vain his friend melancthon represented to him that, if the neglect were such a sin, so foolish a reparation would not atone for it. measures, however, were now taken by the romish church and its representatives, which, by attacking the word, as he preached it, drove him further into the battle. it will be remembered that the papal bull, directed against his theses on indulgences, had not actually mentioned him by name. contemptuously, therefore, as the pope had spoken of him as an execrable heretic, he had never yet uttered a formal public judgment upon him. two theological faculties, those of the universities of cologne and louvain, were the first to pronounce an official condemnation of him and his writings. the latter were to be burnt, and their author compelled publicly to recant. this sentence, though pronounced after the disputation at leipzig, related only to a small collection of earlier writings. in a published reply he dismissed, not without scorn, these learned divines, who, in a spirit of vain self-exaltation and without the smallest grounds, had presumed to pass sentence on christian verities. their boasting, he said, was empty wind; their condemnation frightened him no more than the curse of a drunken woman. the first official pronouncement of a german bishop touched him more nearly. this was a decree, issued in january by john, bishop of meissen, from his residence at stolpen. herein, luther's one statement about the cup, which the church, as he said, would do well to restore to the laity, was picked out of his sermon on the sacrament of the lord's supper. the people were to be warned against the grievous errors and inconveniences which were bound to ensue from such a step; and the sermon was to be suppressed. luther was now classed as an open ally of the hussites, whose very ground of contention was the cup. duke george in alarm complained of him to the elector frederick. it was rumoured about him even that he had been born and educated among the bohemians. to this episcopal note, which he ridiculed in a pun, luther published a short and pungent reply in latin and german. he was particularly indignant that this occasion should have been seized to tax his sermon with false doctrine, since the wish he there expressed did not contain, as even his enemies must admit, anything contrary to any dogma of the church. for his enemies, no doubt, this one point was of more practical importance than many deviations from orthodoxy with which they might have reproached him in his doctrine of salvation; for it concerned a jealously guarded privilege of their priestly office, and was connected with the 'bohemian heresy.' as for huss, however, luther now confessed without reserve the sympathy he shared with his evangelical teaching. he had learned to know him better since the leipzig disputation. he now wrote to spalatin: 'i have hitherto, unconsciously, taught everything that huss taught, and so did john staupitz, in short we are all hussites, without knowing it. paul and augustine are also hussites. i know not, for very terror, what to think as to god's fearful judgments among men, seeing that the most palpable evangelical truth known for more than a century, has been burnt and condemned, and nobody has ever ventured to say so.' on the part of the elector, luther still continued to reap the benefit of that placid good-will which disregarded all attempts, either by friendly words or menaces, to set that prince against him. luther for this thanked him publicly, without meeting with any demurrer from the elector, as well in a dedication of the first part of his new work on the psalms, which he had sent to the press early in , as in another prefixed to his tract on christian comfort, already noticed. this last work he had been encouraged to write by spalatin, the confidant of the sick prince whom it was intended to please. in the dedication prefixed to the psalms, he expressed his joy at hearing how frederick had declared in a conversation reported by staupitz, that all sermons, made by man's wit and uttering man's opinions, were cold and powerless, and the scriptures alone inspired with such marvellous power and majesty that one must needs say, 'there is something more there than mere scribe and pharisee; there is the finger of god;' and how, when staupitz had concurred in the remark, the prince had taken his hand and said, 'promise me that you will always think thus.' luther also thanked frederick for having, as all his subjects knew, taken more care of his safety than he had done himself. in his thoughtlessness, he himself had thrown the die, and had already prepared himself for the worst, and only hoped to be able to retire into some corner, when his prince had come forward as his champion. at the same time the elector remained constant in his efforts to check the impetuosity of luther. we have noticed how he encouraged him, through spalatin, to peaceful work in the service of christian preaching. when the episcopal missive from stolpen threatened to make the storm break out afresh, he sent, by spalatin, an urgent exhortation to luther to restrain his pen, and further advised him to send letters of explanation, in a conciliatory spirit, to albert, archbishop of magdeburg and mayence, and the bishop of merseburg. luther wrote to both in a tone of perfect dignity. he begged them not to lend an ear to the complaints and calumniations which were being circulated against him, especially in reference to giving the cup to the laity, and to the papal power, until the matter had been seriously examined. he spoke at the same time of malicious accusers, who on those points held secretly the same opinions as himself. but from this contest with the bishop of meissen he refused to withdraw. to spalatin he broke out again in february , in terms more decided than any he had previously given vent to, and which led people to expect still sharper utterances. 'do not suppose,' he said, 'that the cause of christ is to be furthered on earth in sweet peace: the word of god can never be set forth without danger and disquiet: it is a word of infinite majesty, it works great things, and is wonderful among the great and the high; it slew, as the prophet says (psalm lxxviii. ), the wealthiest of them, and smote down the chosen ones of israel. in this matter one must either renounce peace or deny the word; the battle is the lord's, who has not come to bring peace into the world.' again he says: 'if you would think rightly of the gospel, do not believe that its cause can be advanced without tumult, trouble, and uproar. you cannot make a pen out of a sword: the word of god is a sword; it is war, overthrow, trouble, destruction, poison; it meets the children of ephraim, as amos says, like a bear on the road, or like a lioness in the wood.' of himself he adds: 'i cannot deny that i am more violent than i ought to be; they know it, and therefore should not provoke the dog. how hard it is to moderate one's heat and one's pen you can learn for yourself. that is the reason why i was always unwilling to be forced to come forward in public; and the more unwilling i am, the more i am drawn into the contest; that this happens so is due to those scandalous libels which are heaped against me and the word of god. so shameful are they that, even if my heat and my pen did not carry me away, a very heart of stone would be moved to seize a weapon, how much more myself, who am hot and whose pen is not entirely blunt.' the two dignitaries of the church answered not ungraciously. they merely expressed an opinion that he was too violent, and that his writings would have a questionable influence with the mass of the people. they refrained from giving judgment on the matter; a proof that, in the catholic church in germany, the questions raised by luther could not then have been considered of such importance as the upholders of the strict papal system maintained and desired. even albert, the cardinal, archbishop, and primate of the german church, ventured to speak of the whole question about the divine or merely human right of the papacy as an insignificant affair, which had but little to do with real christianity, and therefore should never have become the occasion of such passionate dispute. from rome was now awaited the supreme judicial decision as to luther and his cause. the pope had already in indicated clearly enough to frederick the wise in what sense he intended to give this decision. but it kept on being delayed, because, on the one hand, it still appeared necessary to act with caution and consideration, and, on the other, because roman arrogance continued to underestimate the danger of the german movement. meanwhile eck, by a report of his disputation and by letters had stirred the fire at rome. the theologians of cologne and louvain worked in the same direction, and called on the whole dominican order to assist them with their influence. the papal pretensions which luther had disputed were now for the first time proclaimed in all their fulness of audacity and exaggeration. luther's old opponent prierias, in a new pamphlet, extended them to the temporal as well as the spiritual sovereignty of the world; the pope, he said, was head of the universe. eck now devoted an entire treatise to justifying the divine right of the papal primacy, resting his proofs boldly, and without any attempt at critical inquiry, on spurious old documents. with this book he hastened in february to rome, in order personally to push forward and assist in publishing the bull of excommunication which was to demolish his enemy and extinguish the flame he had kindled. but luther's work, in proportion as it advanced and became bolder, had stirred already the minds of the people both wider and deeper. opponents of rome who had risen up against her in other quarters, on other grounds, and with other weapons, now ranged themselves upon his side. among all alike the ardour of battle grew the more powerful and violent, the more it was attempted to smother them with edicts of arbitrary power. chapter vi. alliance with the humanists and the nobility. we have already seen how astonished miltitz was at the sympathy with luther which he found among all classes of the german people. the growth of this sympathy is shown in particular by the increasing number of printed editions of his writings; the perfect freedom then enjoyed by the press contributed largely to their wide circulation. in alone there were more than a hundred editions of luther's works in german. though the ordinary book-trade as now carried on was then unknown, there were a multitude of colporteurs actively employed in going with books from house to house, some of them merely in the interests of their trade, others also as emissaries of those who were friends of the cause, thus intended to be furthered. as reading was a difficult matter to the masses, and even to many of the higher classes, there were travelling students who went about to different places, and proffered their assistance. the earnest, deeply instructive contents of luther's small popular tracts met the needs of both the educated and uneducated classes, in a manner never done by any other religious writings of that time, and served to stimulate their appetite for more. and to this was added the strong impression produced directly on their minds by the elementary exposition of his doctrine, irreconcilable with all notions of the church system hitherto prevailing, and stigmatised by his enemies as poison. all, in short, that this condemned heretic wrote, became dear to the hearts of the people. luther found now, moreover, most valuable allies in the leading champions of that humanistic movement, the importance of which, as regards the culture of the priesthood and the religious and ecclesiastical development of that time, we had occasion to notice during luther's residence at the university of erfurt. that humanism, more than anything else, represented the general aspiration of the age to attain a higher standard of learning and culture. the alliance between luther and the humanists inaugurated and symbolised the union between this culture and the evangelical reformation. luther, even before entering the convent, had formed a friendship with at least some of the young 'poets,' or enthusiasts of this new learning. later on, when, after the inward struggles and heart-searchings of those gloomy years of monastic experience, the light dawned upon him of his scriptural doctrine of salvation, we find him expressing his sympathy and reverence for the two leading spirits of the movement, reuchlin and erasmus; and this notwithstanding the fact that he never approved the method of defence adopted by the supporters of the former, nor could ever conceal his dislike of the attitude taken up by erasmus in regard to theology and religion. meanwhile, such humanists as wished to enjoy the utmost possible freedom for their own learned pursuits flocked around reuchlin against his literary enemies, and cared very little about the authorities of the church. the bold monk and his party excited neither their interest nor their concern. many of them thought of him, no doubt, when he was engaged in the heat of the contest about indulgences, as did ulrich von hutten, who wrote to a friend: 'a quarrel has broken out at wittenberg between two hot-headed monks, who are screaming and shouting against each other. it is to be hoped that they will eat one another up.' to such men the theological questions at issue seemed not worth consideration. at the same time they took care to pay all necessary respect to the princes of the church, who had shown favour to them personally and to their learning, and did homage to them, notwithstanding much that must have shocked them in their conduct as ecclesiastics. thus hutten did not scruple to enter the service of the same archbishop albert who had opened the great traffic in indulgences in germany, but who was also a patron of literature and art, and was only too glad to be recognised publicly by an erasmus. we hear nothing of any remonstrances made to him by erasmus himself. in the same spirit that dictated the above remark of hutten, mosellanus, who opened with a speech the disputation at leipzig, wrote to erasmus during the preparations for that event. there will be a rare battle, he said, and a bloody one, coming off between two scholastics; ten such men as democritus would find enough to laugh over till they were tired. moreover, luther's fundamental conception of religion, with his doctrine of man's sinfulness and need of salvation, so far from corresponding, was in direct antagonism with that humanistic view of life which seemed to have originated from the devotion to classical antiquity, and to revive the proud, self-satisfied, independent spirit of heathendom. even in an erasmus luther had thought he perceived an inability to appreciate his new doctrine. melancthon's arrival at wittenberg was, in this respect, an event of the first importance. this highly-gifted young man, who had united in his person all the learning and culture of his time, whose mind had unfolded in such beauty and richness, and whose personal urbanity had so endeared him to men of culture wherever he went, now found his true happiness in that gospel and in that path of grace which luther had been the first to make known. and whilst offering the right hand of fellowship to luther, he continued working with energy in his own particular sphere, kept up his intimacy with his fellow-labourers therein, and won their respect and admiration. humanists at a distance, meanwhile, must have noticed the fact, that the most violent attacks against luther proceeded from those very quarters, as for instance, from hoogstraten, and afterwards from the theological faculty at cologne, where reuchlin had been the most bitterly persecuted. at length the actual details of the disputation between luther and eck opened men's eyes to the magnitude of the contest there waged for the highest interests of christian life and true christian knowledge, and to the greatness of the man who had ventured single-handed to wage it. at erfurt luther had found already in the spring of , on his return from the meeting of his order at heidelberg, in pleasing contrast to the displeasure he had aroused among his old teachers there, a spirit prevailing among the students of the university, which gave him hope that true theology would pass from the old to the young, just as once christianity, rejected by the jews, passed from them to the heathen. those well-wishers and advisers who took his part at augsburg, when he had to go thither to meet caietan, were friends of humanistic learning. among the earliest of those, outside wittenberg, who united that learning with the new tendency of religious teaching, we find some prominent citizens of the flourishing town of nüremberg, where, as we have seen, luther's old friend link was also actively engaged. already before the contest about indulgences broke out, the learned jurist scheuerl of that place had made friends with luther, whom the next year he speaks of as the most celebrated man in germany. the most important of the humanists there, willibald pirkheimer, a patrician of high esteem and an influential counsellor, and who had once held local military command, corresponded with luther, and after learning from him the progress of his views and studies concerning the papal power, made his leipzig opponent the object of a bitter anonymous satire, 'the polished corner' (eck). another learned nüremberger, the secretary of the senate, lazarus spengler, was on terms of close christian fellowship with luther: he published in a 'defence and christian answer,' which contained a powerful and worthy vindication of luther's popular tracts. albert dürer also, the famous painter, took a deep interest in luther's evangelical doctrine, and revered him as a man inspired by the holy ghost. among the number of theologians who ranked next to erasmus, the well-known john oecolampadius, then a preacher at augsburg, and almost of the same age as luther, came forward in his support, towards the end of , with a pamphlet directed against eck. erasmus himself in , at least in a private letter to luther's friend lange at erfurt, of which the latter we may be sure did not leave luther in ignorance, declared that luther's theses were bound to commend themselves to all good men, almost without exception; that the present papal domination was a plague to christendom; the only question was whether tearing open the wound would do any good, and whether it was not conceivable that the matter could be carried through without an actual rupture. luther, on his part, approached reuchlin and erasmus by letter. to the former he wrote, at the urgent entreaty of melancthon, in december , to the latter in the following march. both letters are couched in the refined language befitting these learned men, and particularly erasmus, and contain warm expressions of respect and deference, though in a tone of perfect dignity, and free from the hyperboles to which erasmus was usually treated by his common admirers. at the same time luther was careful indeed to conceal the other and less favourable side of his estimate of erasmus, which he had already formed in his own mind and expressed to his friends. we can see how bent he was, notwithstanding, upon a closer intimacy with that distinguished man. reuchlin, then an old man, would have nothing to do with luther and the questions he had raised. he even sought to alienate his nephew melancthon from him, by bidding him abstain from so perilous an enterprise. [illustration: fig. l .--w. pirkheimer. (from a portrait by albert dürer.)] erasmus replied with characteristic evasion. he had not yet read luther's writings, but he advised everyone to read them before crying them down to the people. he himself believed that more was to be gained by quietness and moderation than by violence, and he felt bound to warn him in the spirit of christ against all intemperate and passionate language; but he did not wish to admonish luther what to do, but only to continue steadfastly what he was doing already. the chief thought to which he gives expression is the earnest hope that the movement kindled by luther's writings would not give occasion to opponents to accuse and suppress the 'noble arts and letters.' a regard for these, which indeed were the object of his own high calling, was always of paramount importance in his eyes. not content with attacking by means of ridicule the abuses in the church, erasmus took a genuine interest in the improvement of its general condition, and in the elevation and refinement of moral and religious life, as well as of theological science; and the high esteem he enjoyed made him an influential man among even the superior clergy and the princes of the church. but from the first he recognised, as he says in his letter to lange, and possibly better than luther himself, the difficulties and dangers of attacking the church system on the points selected by luther. and when luther boldly anticipated the disturbances which the word must cause in the world, and dwelt on christ's saying that he had come to bring a sword, erasmus shrank back in terror at the thought of tumult and destruction. conformably with the whole bent of his natural disposition and character, he adhered anxiously to the peaceful course of his work and the pursuit of his intellectual pleasures. questions involving deep principles, such as those of the divine right of the papacy, the absolute character of church authority, or the freedom of christian judgment, as founded on the bible, he regarded from aloof; notwithstanding that silence or concealment towards either party, when once these principles were publicly put in question, was bound to be construed as a denial of the truth. we shall see how this same standpoint, from which this learned man still retained his inward sympathy with church matters, dictated further his attitude towards luther and the reformation. for the present, luther had to thank the good opinion of erasmus, cautiously expressed though it was, for a great advancement of his cause. it was valuable to luther in regard to those who had no personal knowledge of him, as giving them conclusive proof that his character and conduct were irreproachable. his influence is apparent in the answer of the archbishop albert to luther, in its tone of gracious reticence, and its remarks about needless contention. erasmus had written some time before to the archbishop, contrasting the excesses charged against luther with those of the papal party, and denouncing the corruptions of the church, and particularly the lack of preachers of the gospel. much to the annoyance of erasmus, this letter was published, and it worked more in luther's favour than he wished. those hopes which luther had placed in the young students at erfurt were shortly fulfilled by the so-called 'poets' beginning now to read and expound the new testament. the theology, which, in its scholastic and monastic form, they regarded with contempt, attracted them as knowledge of the divine word. justus jonas, luther's junior by ten years, a friend of eoban hess, and one of the most talented of the circle of young 'poets,' now exchanged for theology the study of the law, which he had already begun to teach. to his respect for erasmus was now added an enthusiastic admiration for luther, the courageous erfurt champion of this new evangelical doctrine. a close intimacy sprang up between jonas and luther, as also between jonas and luther's friend lange. erasmus had persuaded him to take up theology; luther, on hearing of it in , congratulated him on taking refuge from the stormy sea of law in the asylum of the scriptures. none of the old erfurt students, however, had cultivated luther's friendship more zealously than crotus, his former companion at that university; and this even from italy, where his sympathies with luther had been stirred by the news from germany, and where he had learned to realise, from the evidence of his eyes, the full extent of the scandals and evils against which luther was waging war. he, who in the 'epistolae virorum obscurorum,' had failed to exhibit in his satire the solemn earnestness which recommended itself to luther's taste and judgment, now openly declared his concurrence with luther's fundamental ideas of religion and theology, and his high appreciation of scripture and of the scriptural doctrine of salvation. he wrote repeatedly to him, reminding him of their days together at erfurt, telling him about the 'plague-chair' at rome, and the intrigues carried on there by eck, and encouraging him to persevere in his work. expressions common to the 'poets' of his university days were curiously mingled in his letters with others of a religious kind. he would like to glorify, as a father of their fatherland, worthy of a golden statue and an annual festival, his friend martin, who had been the first to venture to liberate the people of god, and show them the way to true piety. not only from italy, but also after his return, he employed his characteristic literary activity, by means of anonymous pamphlets, in the service of luther. it was he who, towards the end of , sent from italy to luther and melancthon at wittenberg, the humanist theologian, john hess, afterwards the reformer of the church at breslau. crotus himself returned in the spring of to germany. [illustration: fig. .--ulrich von hutten. (from an old woodcut.)] here these humanist friends of the lutheran movement had already been joined by crotus' personal friend, ulrich von hutten, who not only could wield his pen with more vigour and acuteness than almost all his associates, but who declared himself ready to take up the sword for the cause he defended, and to call in powerful allies of his own class to the fight. he sprang from an old franconian family, the heirs, not indeed of much wealth or property, but of an old knightly spirit of independence. hatred of monasticism and all that belonged to it, must have been nursed by him from youth; for having been placed, when a boy, in a convent, he ran away with the aid of crotus, when only sixteen. sharing the literary tastes of his friend, he learned to write with proficiency the poetical and rhetorical latin of the humanists of that time. in spite of all his irregularities, adventures, and unsettlement of habits, he had preserved an elastic and elevated turn of mind, desirous of serving the interests of a 'free and noble learning,' and a knightly courage, which urged him to the fight with a frankness and straightforwardness not often found among his fellow-humanists. whilst laughing at luther's controversy as a petty monkish quarrel, he himself dealt a heavy blow to the traditional pretensions of the papacy by the republication of a work by the famous italian humanist laurentius valla, long since dead, on the pretended donation of constantine, in which the writer exposed the forgery of the edict purporting to grant the possession of rome, italy, and indeed the entire western world to the roman see. this work hutten actually dedicated to pope leo himself. but what distinguished this knight and humanist above all the others who were contending on behalf of learning and against the oppressions and usurpations of the church and monasticism, were his thoroughly german sympathies, and his zeal for the honour and independence of his nation. he saw her enslaved in ecclesiastical bondage to the papal see, and at the mercy of the avarice and caprice of rome. he heard with indignation how scornfully the 'rough and simple germans' were spoken of in italy, how even on german soil the roman emissaries openly paraded their arrogance, how some germans, unworthy of the name, pandered to such scorn and contempt by a cringing servility which made them crouch before the papal chair and sue for favour and office. he warned them to prepare for a mighty outburst of german liberty, already well-nigh strangled by rome. at the same time he denounced the vices of his own countrymen, particularly that of drunkenness, and the proneness to luxury and usurious dealing in trade and commerce, all of which, as we have seen, had been complained of by luther. nor less than of the honour of germany herself, was he jealous of the honour and power of the empire. in all that he did he was guided, perhaps involuntarily, but in a special degree, by the principles and interests of knighthood. his order was indebted to the empire for its chief support, although the imperial authority no less than that of his own class, had sunk in a great measure through the increasing power of the different princes. in the prosperous middle class of germany he saw the spirit of trade prevailing to an excess, with its attendant evils. in the firmly-settled regulations of law and order, which had been established in germany with great trouble at the end of the middle ages, he felt most out of his element: he longed rather to resort to the old method of force whenever he saw justice trampled on. and in this respect also hutten proved true to the traditions of knighthood. but in the material power required to give effect to his ideas of reform in the kindred spheres of politics and of the church in her external aspect, hutten was entirely wanting. more than this, we fail to find in him any clear and positive plans or projects of reform, nor any such calm and searching insight into the relations and problems before him as was indispensable for that object. his call, however rousing and stirring it was, died away in the distance of time and the dimness of uncertainty. hutten found, however, an active and powerful friend, and one versed in war and politics, in francis von sickingen, the 'knight of manly, noble, and courageous spirit,' as an old chronicler describes him. he was the owner of fine estates, among them the strong castles of landstuhl near kaiserslautern, and ebernburg near kreuznach, and had already, in a number of battles conducted on his own account and to redress the wrongs of others, given ample proof of his energy and skill in raising hosts of rustic soldiery, and leading them with reckless valour, in pursuit of his objects, to the fray. hutten won him over to support the cause of reuchlin, still entangled in a prosecution by his old accusers of heresy, hoogstraten and the dominicans at cologne. a sentence of the bishop of spires, rejecting the charges of his opponents, and mulcting them in the costs of the suit, had been annulled, at their instance, by the pope. against them and against the dominican order in particular, sickingen now declared his open enmity, and his sympathy with the 'good old doctor reuchlin.' in spite of delay and resistance, they were forced to pay the sum demanded. meanwhile, no doubt under the influence of his friend crotus, hutten's eyes were opened about the monk luther. during a visit in january to sickingen at his castle of landstuhl, he consulted with him as to the help to be given to the man now threatened with excommunication, and sickingen offered him his protection. hutten at the same time proceeded to launch the most violent controversial diatribes and satires against rome; one in particular, called 'the roman trinity,' wherein he detailed in striking triplets the long series of romish pretensions, trickeries, and vexatious abuses. at easter he held a personal interview at bamberg with crotus, on his return from italy. for the furtherance of their objects and desires, in respect to the affairs of germany and the church these two knights placed high hopes in the new young emperor, who had left spain, and on the st of july landed on the coast of the netherlands. sickingen had earned merit in his election. he had hoped to find in him a truly german emperor, in contrast to king francis of france, who was a competitor for the imperial crown. the pope, as we have seen, had opposed his election; his chief advocate, on the contrary, was luther's friend, the elector frederick. support was also looked for from charles' brother ferdinand, as being a friend of arts and letters. hutten even hoped to obtain a place at his court. [illustration: fig. l.--francis von sickingen. (from an old engraving.)] on this side, therefore, and from these quarters, luther was offered a friendly hand. we hear hutten first mentioned by luther in february , in connection with his edition of the work of valla. this work, though published two years before, had been made known to luther then, for the first time, by a friend. it had awakened his keenest interest; the falsehoods exposed in its pages confirmed him in his opinion that the pope was the real antichrist. shortly after, a letter from hutten reached melancthon, containing sickingen's offer of assistance; a similar communication forwarded to him some weeks before, had never reached its destination. sickingen had charged hutten to write to luther, but hutten was cautious enough to make melancthon the medium, in order not to let his dealings with luther be known. sickingen, he wrote, invited luther, if menaced with danger, to stay with him, and was willing to do what he could for him. hutten added that sickingen might be able to do as much for luther as he had done for reuchlin; but melancthon would see for himself what sickingen had then written to the monks. he spoke, with an air of mystery, of negotiations of the highest importance between sickingen and himself; he hoped it would fare badly with the barbarians, that is, the enemies of learning,--and all those who sought to bring them under the romish yoke. with such objects in view, he had hopes even of ferdinand's support. crotus, meanwhile, after his interview with hutten at bamberg, advised luther not to despise the kindness of sickingen, the great leader of the german nobility. it was rumoured that luther, if driven from wittenberg, would take refuge among the bohemians. crotus earnestly warned him against doing so. his enemies, he said, might force him to do so, knowing, as they did, how hateful the name of bohemian was in germany. hutten himself wrote also to luther, encouraging him, in pious scriptural language, to stand firm and persevere in working with him for the liberation of their fatherland. he repeated to him the invitation of n., (he did not mention his name,) and assured him that the latter would defend him with vigour against his enemies of every kind. another invitation, at the same time, and of the same purport, came to luther from the knight silvester von schauenburg. he too had heard that luther was going to the bohemians. he was willing, however, to protect him from his enemies, as were also a hundred other nobles whom with god's help he would bring with him, until his cause was decided in a right and christian manner. whether luther really entertained the thought of flying to bohemia, we cannot determine with certainty. but we know with what seriousness, as early as the autumn of , after he had refused to retract to the papal legate, he anticipated the duty and necessity of leaving wittenberg. how much more forcibly must the thoughts have recurred to him, when the news arrived of the impending decision at rome, of the warning received from there by the elector, and of the protest uttered even in germany, and by such a prince as duke george of saxony, against any further toleration of his proceedings. the refuge which luther had previously looked for at paris was no longer to be hoped for. since the leipzig disputation he had advanced in his doctrines, and especially in his avowed support of huss, far beyond what the university of paris either liked or would endure. such then was luther's position when he received these invitations. they must have stirred him as distinct messages from above. the letters in which he replied to them have not been preserved to us. we hear, however, that he wrote to hutten, saying that he placed greater hopes in sickingen than in any prince under heaven. schauenburg and sickingen, he says, had freed him from the fear of man; he would now have to withstand the rage of demons. he wished that even the pope would note the fact that he could now find protection from all his thunderbolts, not indeed in bohemia, but in the very heart of germany; and that, under this protection, he could break loose against the romanists in a very different fashion to what he could now do in his official position. as he reviewed, in the course of the contest, the proceedings of his enemies, and was further informed of the conduct of the papal see, the picture of corruption and utter worthlessness, nay the antichristian character of the church system at rome, unfolded itself more and more painfully and fully before his eyes. the richest materials for this conclusion he found in the pamphlets of the writers already referred to, and in the descriptions sent from italy by men like hess and others, who shared his own convictions. all this time, moreover, luther's feelings as a german were more and more stirred within him, while thinking of what german christianity in particular was compelled to suffer at the hands of rome. a lively consciousness of this had been awakened in his mind since the diet of augsburg in , with its protest against the claims of the papacy, its statement of the grievances of the german nation, and the vigorous writings on that subject which were circulated at that time. he referred in to that diet, as having drawn a distinction between the romish church and the romish curia, and repudiated the latter with its demands. as for the romanists, who made the two identical, they looked on a german as a simple fool, a lubberhead, a dolt, a barbarian, a beast, and yet they laughed at him for letting himself be fleeced and pulled by the nose. luther's words were now re-echoed in louder tones by hutten, whose own wish, moreover, was to incite his fellow-countrymen, as such, to rise and betake themselves to battle. there were certain of the laity who had already brought these german grievances in church matters before the diets, and who now gave vent in pamphlets to their denunciations of the corruption and tyranny of the romish church. as for luther, he valued the judgment of a christian layman, who had the bible on his side, as highly, and higher, than that of a priest and prince of the church, and ascribed the true character of a priest to all christians alike: these estates of the augsburg diet he speaks of as 'lay theologians.' leading laymen of the nobility now came forward and offered to assist him in his labours on behalf of the german church. both he and melancthon placed their confidence also gladly in the new german emperor. several letters of luther at this time, closely following on each other, express at once the keenest enthusiasm for the contest, and the idea of a reformation proceeding from the laity, represented, as he understood them, by their established authorities and estates. we find in these letters powerful effusions of holy zeal and language full of christian instruction, mingled with the most vehement outbursts of the natural passion which was boiling in luther's breast. compared with them, the cleverest controversial writings of the humanists, and even the fiercest satires of hutten, sound only like rhetoric and elaborate displays of wit. luther, in his sermon on good works, already noticed as so replete with wholesome doctrine and advice, had already complained that god's ministry was perverted into a means of supporting the lowest creatures of the pope, and had declared that the best and only thing left was for kings, princes, nobles, towns, and parishes to set to work themselves, and 'make a breach in the abuse,' so that the hitherto intimidated clergy might follow. as for excommunication and threats, such things need not trouble them: they meant as little as if a mad father were to threaten his son who was guarding him. the sharpest replies on the part of luther were next provoked by two writings which justified and glorified the divine authority and power of the papacy. one was by a franciscan friar, augustin von alveld; the other by silvester prierias, already mentioned, who was his most active opponent in this matter. luther broke out against 'the alveld ass' (as he called him in a letter to spalatin) in a long reply entitled 'the popedom at rome,' with the object of exposing once and finally the secrets of antichrist. 'from rome' he says 'flow all evil examples of spiritual and temporal iniquity into the world, as from a sea of wickedness. whoever mourns to see it, is called by the romans a 'good christian,' or in their language, a fool. it was a proverb among them that one ought to wheedle the gold out of the german simpletons as much as one could.' if the german princes and nobles did not 'make short work of them in good earnest,' germany would either be devastated or would have to devour herself. prierias' pamphlet provoked him to exclaim, in that same letter to spalatin, 'i think that at rome they are all mad, silly, and raging, and have become mere fools, sticks and stones, hells and devils.' his remarks on this pamphlet, written in latin, contain the strongest words that we have yet heard from his lips about the 'only means left,' and the 'short work' to be made of rome. emperors, kings, and princes, he says, would yet have to take up the sword against the rage and plague of the romanists. 'when we hang thieves, and behead murderers, and burn heretics, why do not we lay hands on these cardinals and popes and all the rabble of the romish sodom, and bathe our hands in their blood?' what luther now in reality wished to see done, was, as he goes on to say, that the pope should be corrected as christ commands men to deal with their offending brethren (st. matth. xviii. sqq.), and, if he neglected to hear, should be held as an heathen man and a publican. while these pages of luther's were in the press, towards the middle of june, hutten, full of hope himself, and carrying with him the hopes of luther and melancthon, set off on his journey to the emperor's brother in the netherlands, and, on his way, paid a visit at cologne to the learned agrippa von nettesheim, accompanied, as the latter says, by a 'few adherents of the lutheran party.' there, as agrippa relates with terror, they expressed aloud their thoughts. 'what have we to do with rome and its bishop?' they asked. 'have we no archbishops and bishops in germany, that we must kiss the feet of this one? let germany turn, and turn she will, to her own bishops and pastors.' hutten paid the expenses of this journey out of money given him by the archbishop albert; between these two, therefore, the bonds of friendship were not yet broken. albert was the first of the german bishops; hutten, and very possibly the archbishop also, might reasonably suppose that a reform proceeding from the emperor and the empire, might place him at the head of a german national church. but luther had already put his pen to a composition which was to summon the german laity to the grand work before them, to establish the foundations of christian belief, and to set forth in full the most crying needs and aims of the time. he had resolved to give the strongest and amplest expression in his power to the truth for which he was contending. chapter vii. luther's works to the christian nobility of the german nation, and on the babylonian captivity. in a dedication to his friend and colleague amsdorf, prefixed to the first of these works, he begins, 'the time of silence is past, and the time for speaking is come.' he had several points, he tells us, concerning the improvement of the christian condition, to lay before the christian nobility of germany; perhaps god would help his church through the laity, since the clergy had become entirely careless. if charged with presumption in venturing to address such high people on such great matters, so be it, then perhaps he was guilty of a folly towards his god and the world, and might one day become court-jester. but inasmuch as he was a sworn doctor of holy scripture, he rejoiced in the opportunity of satisfying his oath in this manner. he then turns to the 'most illustrious, most powerful imperial majesty, and to the christian nobility of the german nation,' with the greeting, 'grace and strength from god first of all, most illustrious, gracious, and beloved lords!' the need and troubles of christendom, and especially of germany, constrained him, as he said, to cry to god that he might inspire some one to stretch out his hand to the suffering nation. his hopes were in the noble young blood now given by god as her head. he would likewise do his part. the romanists, in order to prevent their being reformed, had shut themselves within three walls. firstly, they said, the temporal power had no rights over them, the spiritual power, but the spiritual was above the temporal; secondly, the scriptures, which were sought to be employed against them, could only be expounded by the pope; thirdly, no one but the pope could summon a council. against this, luther calls to god for one of those trumpets which once blew down the walls of jericho, in order to blow down also, these walls of straw and paper. his assault upon the first wall was decisive for the rest. he accomplished it with his doctrine of the spiritual and priestly character of all christians, who had been baptised and consecrated by the blood of christ ( peter ii. ; rev. v. ). thus, according to luther, they are all of one character, one rank. the only thing peculiar to the so-called ecclesiastics or priests, is the special office or work of 'administering the word of god and the sacraments' to the congregation. the power to do this is given, indeed, by god to all christians as priests, but, being so given, cannot be assumed by an individual without the will and command of the community. the ordination of priests, as they are called, by a bishop can in reality only signify that, out of the collective body of christians, all possessing equal power, one is selected, and commanded to exercise this power on behalf of the rest. they hold, therefore, this peculiar office, like their fellow-members of the community who are entrusted with temporal authority, namely, to wield the sword for the punishment of the bad and the protection of the good. they hold it, as every shoemaker, smith, or builder holds office in his particular trade, and yet all alike are priests. moreover, this temporal magisterial power has the right to exercise its office free and unhindered in its own sphere of action; no pope or bishop must here interfere, no so-called priest must usurp it. as a consequence of this spiritual character of christians, the second wall was also doomed to fall. christ said of all christians, that they shall all be taught of god (st. john vi. ). thus any man, however humble, if he was a true christian, could have a right understanding of the scriptures; and the pope, if wicked and not a true christian, was not taught of god. if the pope alone were always in the right, one would have to pray 'i believe in the pope at rome,' and the whole christian church would then be centred in one man, which would be nothing short of devilish and hellish error. after this the third wall fell by itself. for, says luther, when the pope acts against the scriptures, it is our duty to stand by the scriptures and to punish him as christ taught us to punish offending brethren (st. matthew xviii. ), when he said, 'tell it unto the church.' now the church or christendom must be gathered together in a council. and like as the most famous of the councils, that of nice, and others after it, had been summoned by the emperor, so must everyone, as a true member of the whole body, and when necessary, do what he can to make it a really free council: 'which nobody can do so well as the temporal authorities, who meet these as fellow-christians, fellow-priests.' just as if a fire broke out in a city, no one, because he had not the power of the burgomaster, durst stand still and let it burn, but every citizen must run and call others together, so was it in the spiritual city of christ, if a fire of trouble and affliction should arise. the question as to the composition of such a council luther does not proceed to discuss. that he wished, however, the laity to be represented, we may safely assume from the whole context, though it is doubtful how far he may then have thought of a representation of the temporal authorities as such, and, above all, of the christian body collectively, through its political members. but the main point on which he insisted was, that the council should be a free and really christian one, bound by no oath to the pope, fettered by no so-called canon law, but subject only to the word of god in holy writ. under twenty-six heads luther then proceeds to enumerate the points on which such a council should treat, and which should be urged in particular in connection with the question of reform. the whole arrogance of the papacy, the temporal pride with which the pope clothed himself, the idolatry with which he was treated, were to luther a scandal and unchristian. lord of the universe, the pope styled himself, and paraded about with a triple crown in all temporal splendour, and with an endless train of followers and baggage, whilst claiming to be the vicegerent of the lord who wandered about in poverty, and gave himself up to the cross, and declared that his kingdom was not of this world. clearly and fully luther shows the various ways, embracing the whole life of the church, in which romish tyranny had enslaved the churches of other countries, especially of germany, and had turned them to account and plundered them: by means of fees and taxes of all kinds, by drawing away the trial of ecclesiastical cases to rome, by accumulating benefices in the hands of papal favourites of the worst description, by the unprincipled and usurious sale of dispensations, by the oath which made the bishops mere vassals of the pope, and effectually prevented all reform. in this greed for money in particular, and in the crafty methods of collecting it, luther saw the genuine antichrist, who, as daniel had foretold, was to gather the treasures of the earth (daniel xi. , , ). to confront this oppression and these acts of usurpation, luther would not have men wait for a council. as for these impositions and taxes, he says that every prince, noble, and town should straightway repudiate and forbid them. this lawless pillaging of ecclesiastical benefices and fiefs by rome should be resisted at once by the nobility. anyone coming from the papal court to germany with such claims, must be ordered to desist, or to jump into the nearest piece of water with his seals and letters and the ban of excommunication. luther insists especially on demanding, as hutten had already demanded, that the individual churches, and particularly those of germany, should order and conduct their own affairs independently of rome. the bishops were not to obtain their confirmation at rome, but, as already decreed by the nicene council, from a couple of neighbouring bishops or an archbishop. the german bishops were to be under their own primate, who might hold a general consistory with chancellors and counsellors, to receive appeals from the whole of germany. the pope, in other respects, was still to be left a position of supremacy in the collective christian church, and the adjudication of matters of importance on which the primates could not agree. one other matter luther dwells on, as affecting the entire constitution of the church. it is not the mere administrative and judicial functions that constitute the true meaning of office, whether in a priest, a bishop, or a pope, but a constant service to god's word. luther therefore is anxious that the pope should not be burdened with small matters. he calls to mind how once the apostles would not leave the word of god, and serve tables, but wished to give themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word (acts vi. , ). but he would have a clean sweep made of the so-called ecclesiastical law, contained in the law-books of the church. the scriptures were sufficient. besides, the pope himself did not keep that law, but pretended to carry all law in the shrine of his own heart. consistently with all that he has said about the relative positions of the temporal and spiritual powers, luther goes on to protest, on behalf especially of the german empire, against the 'overbearing and criminal behaviour' of the pope, who arrogates to himself power over the emperor, and allows the latter to kiss his foot and hold his stirrup. granted that he is superior to the emperor in spiritual office, in preaching, in administering the word of grace; in other matters he is his inferior. but the most important demand advanced by luther, while pushing further his inquiries into the moral and social regulations and condition of the church, is the abolition of the celibacy of the clergy. if popes and bishops wish to impose upon themselves the burden of an unmarried life, he has nothing to say to that. he speaks only of the clergy in general, whom god has appointed, who are needed by every christian community for the service of preaching and the sacraments, and who must live and keep house amongst their fellow-christians. not an angel from heaven, much less a pope, dare bind this man to what god has never bound him, and thereby precipitate him into danger and, sin. a limit at least must be imposed on monastic life. luther would like to see the convents and cloisters turned into christian schools, where men might learn the scriptures and discipline, and be trained to govern others and to preach. he would further give full liberty to quit such institutions at pleasure. he reverts to the question of clerical celibacy, in lamenting the gross immoralities of the priesthood, and complaining that marriage was so frequently avoided on account simply of the responsibilities it entailed, and the restraints it imposed on loose living. luther would abolish all commands to fast, on the ground that these ordinances of man are opposed to the freedom of the bible. he would do away also with the multitude of festivals and holidays, as leading only to idleness, carousing, and gambling. he would check the foolish pilgrimages to rome, on which so much money was wasted, whilst wife and child, and poor christian neighbours were left at home to starve, and which drew people into so much trouble and temptation. as regards the management of the poor, luther's requirements were somewhat stringent. all begging among christians was to be forbidden; each town was to provide for its own poor, and not admit strange beggars. as the universities at that time, no less than the schools, were in connection with the church, luther offers some suggestions for their reform. he singles out the writings of the ancients which were read in the philosophical faculty, and others, which might be done away with as useless or even pernicious. with regard to the mass of civil law, he agreed with the complaint often heard among germans, that it had become a wilderness: each state should be governed, as far as possible, 'by its own brief laws.' for children, girls as well as boys, he would like to see a school in every town. it grieved him to see how, in the very heart of christendom, the young folk were neglected and allowed to perish for lack of timely sustenance with the bread of the gospel. he reverts again to the question about the bohemians, with a view to silencing at length the vile calumniations of his enemies. and in so doing he remarks of huss, that even if he had been a heretic, 'heretics must be conquered with the pen and not with fire. if to conquer them with fire were an art, the executioners would be the most learned doctors on the earth.' lastly he refers briefly to the prevalent evils of worldly and social life; to wit, the luxury in dress and food, the habits of excess common among germans, the practice of usury and taking interest. he would like to put a bridle into the mouth of the great commercial firms, especially the rich house of fugger; for the amassing of such enormous wealth, during the life of one man, could never be done by right and godly means. it seemed to him 'far more godly to promote agriculture and lessen commerce.' luther speaks in this as a man of the people, who were already suspicious about this accumulation of money, from a right feeling really of the moral and economical dangers thence accruing to the nation, even if ignorant of the necessary relations of supply and demand. as to this, luther adds: 'i leave that to the worldly-wise; i, as a theologian, can only say, abstain from all appearance of evil.' ( thessalonians v. .) so wide a field of subjects did this little book embrace. we have only here mentioned the chief points. luther himself acknowledges at the conclusion: 'i am well aware that i have pitched my note high, that i have proposed many things which will be looked upon as impossible, and have attacked many points too sharply. i am bound to add, that if i could, i would not only talk but act; i would rather the world were angry with me than god.' but rome always remained the chief object of his attacks. 'well then,' he says of her, 'i know of another little song of rome; if her ear itches for it, i will sing it to her and pitch the notes at their highest.' he concludes, 'god give us all a christian understanding, and to the christian nobility of the german nation, especially, a true spiritual courage to do their best for the poor church. amen.' whilst luther was working on this treatise, new disquieting rumours and remonstrances addressed from rome to the elector reached him through spalatin. but with them came also that promise of protection from schauenburg. luther answered spalatin, 'the die is cast, i despise alike the wrath and the favour of rome; i will have no reconciliation with her, no fellowship.' friends who heard of his new work grew alarmed; staupitz, even at the eleventh hour, tried to dissuade him from it. but before august was far advanced, four thousand copies were already printed and published. a new edition was immediately called for. luther now added another section repudiating the arrogant pretension of the pope, that through his means the roman empire had been brought to germany. well might luther's friend lange call this treatise a war-trumpet. the reformer, who at first merely wished to point out and open to men the right way of salvation, and to fight for it with the sword of his word, now stepped forward boldly and with determination, demanding the abolition of all unlawful and unchristian ordinances of the romish church, and calling upon the temporal power to assist him, if need be, with material force. the groundwork of this resolve had been laid, as we have seen, in the progress of his moral and religious convictions; in the inalienable rights which belong to christianity in general, and the mission with which god entrusts also the temporal power or state; in the independence granted by him to this power on its own domain, and the duties he has imposed upon all christian authorities, even in regard to all moral and religious needs and dangers. but he denied altogether, and we may well believe him, that he had any wish to create disorder or disturbance; his intention was merely to prepare the way for a free council. not indeed that he shrank from the thought of battle and tumult, should the powers whom he invoked meet with resistance from the adherents of rome or antichrist. as for himself, though forced to make such a stormy appearance, he had no idea of himself being destined to become the reformer, but was content rather to prepare the way for a greater man, and his thoughts herein turned to melancthon. thus he wrote to lange these remarkable words: 'it may be that i am the forerunner of philip, and like elias, prepare the way for him in spirit and in strength, destroying the people of ahab' ( kings xviii). melancthon, on the other hand, wrote to lange just then about luther, saying that he did not venture to check the spirit of martin in this matter, to which providence seemed to have appointed him. from the electoral court luther learned that his treatise was 'not altogether displeasing.' and just at this time he had to thank his prince for a present of game. [illustration: fig. .--title-page of the second edition of this treatise, in a rather smaller size.] there is no doubt that luther received also from that quarter the advice to approach the emperor, who had just arrived in germany, and whom he had wished to address in his treatise, with a direct personal request for protection, to prevent his being condemned unheard. he addressed to him a well-considered letter, couched in dignified language. he issued at the same time a short public 'offer,' appealing therein to the fact, that he had so long begged in vain for a proper refutation. these two writings were first examined and corrected by spalatin, and so appeared only at the end of august, not, as is generally supposed, in the january of this year. luther never received an answer to his letter to the emperor, and therefore never heard how it was received. the dangers which threatened luther, and through him also the honour and prosperity of his order, affected further his companions and friends who belonged to it. and of this miltitz took advantage to renew his attempts at mediation. he induced the brethren, at a convention of augustinian friars held at eisleben, to persuade luther once more to write to the pope, and solemnly assure him that he had never wished to attack him personally. a deputation of these monks, with staupitz and link at their head, came to luther at wittenberg on the th or th of september, and received his promise to comply with their wishes. at this convention, staupitz, who felt his strength no longer equal to the difficult questions and controversies of the time, had resigned his office as vicar of the order, and link had succeeded him. luther saw him now at wittenberg for the last time. he retired in quiet seclusion to salzburg, where the archbishop was his personal friend. but luther's spirit would not let him desist for a moment from prosecuting his contest with rome. he had yet 'a little song' to sing about her. he was in fact at work in august, while rumours were already afloat that eck was on his way with the bull, upon a new tract, and had even begun to have it printed. it was to treat of the 'babylonian captivity of the church,' taking as its subject the christian sacraments. luther knew that in this he cut deeper into the theological and religious principles of the church, which had come under discussion in his quarrel with rome, than in all his demands for reform, put forward in his address to the nobility. for while, in common with the church herself, he saw in the sacraments, instituted by christ, the most sacred acts of worship, and the channels through which salvation itself, forgiveness, grace, and strength are imparted from above, in those principles he saw them limited by man's caprice in their original scope and meaning, robbed of their true significance, and made the instruments of papal and priestly domination, while other pretended sacraments were joined to them, never instituted by christ. on this account he complained of the tyranny to which these sacraments, and with them the church, were subject, of the captivity in which they lay. against him were arrayed not only the hierarchy, but the whole forces of scholastic learning. he knew that what he now propounded would sound preposterous to these opponents; he would make, he said, his feeble revilers feel their blood run cold. but he met them in the armour of profound erudition, and with learned arguments lucidly and concisely expressed in latin. at the same time his language, where he explains the real essence of the sacraments, shows a clearness and religious fervour which no layman could fail to understand. the subject of the deepest importance to luther in this treatise was the sacrament of the altar. he dwells on the mutilated form, without the cup, in which the lord's supper was given to the laity; on the doctrine invented about the change of the bread, instead of keeping to the simple word of scripture; and, lastly, on the substitution of a sacrifice, supposed to be offered to god by the priest, for the institution ordained by christ for the nourishment of the faithful. the withholding of the cup he calls an act of ungodliness and tyranny, beyond the power of either pope or council to prescribe. against the sacrifice of the mass he had published just before a sermon in german. he was well aware that his principles involved, as indeed he intended, a revolution of the whole service, and an attack on an ordinance, upon which a number of other abuses, of great importance to the hierarchy, depended. but he ventured it, because god's word obliged him to do it. so now he proceeds to describe, in contrast to this mass, the one of true christian institution, and resting wholly, as he conceived it, on the words of christ, when instituting the last supper, 'take, and eat,' etc. christ would here say, 'see, thou poor sinner, out of pure love i promise to thee, before thou canst either earn or promise anything, forgiveness of all thy sins, and eternal life, and to assure thee of this i give here my body and shed my blood; do thou, by my death, rest assured of this promise, and take as a sign my body and my blood.' for the worthy celebration of this mass, nothing is required but faith, which shall trust securely in this promise; with this faith will come the sweetest stirrings of the heart, which will unfold itself in love, and yearn for the good saviour, and in him will become a new creature. as regards baptism luther lamented that it was no longer allowed to possess the true significance and value it ought to have for a man's whole life. whereas in truth the person baptized received a promise of mercy from god, to which time after time, even from the sins of his future life, he might and was bound to turn, it was taught, that in sinning after baptism, the christian was like a shipwrecked man, who, instead of the ship, could only reach a plank; this being the sacrament of penance, with its accompanying outward formalities. whereas further, in true baptism he had vowed to dedicate his whole life and conduct to god, other vows of human invention were now demanded of him. whereas he then became a full partaker of christian liberty, he was now burdened with ordinances of the church, devised by man. concerning this sacrament of penance, with confession, absolution, and its other adjuncts, luther rates at its full value the word of forgiveness spoken to the individual, and values also the free confession made to his christian brother by the christian seeking comfort. but confession, he said, had been perverted into an institution of compulsion and torture. instead of leading the tempted brother to trust in god's mercy, he was ordered to perform acts of penance, whereby nominally to give satisfaction to god, but in reality to minister to the ambition and insatiable avarice of the roman see. from all these abuses and perversions luther seeks to liberate the sacraments, and restore them in their purity to christians. nevertheless, he takes care to insist on the fact that it is not the mere external ceremony, the act of the priest in administering, and the visible partaking of the receiver, that make the latter a sharer in the promised grace and blessedness. this, he says, depends upon a hearty faith in the divine promise. he who believes enjoys the benefit of the sacrament, even though its outward administration be denied him. the mediaeval church ordained four other sacraments, namely, confirmation, marriage, consecration of priests, and extreme unction. but luther refuses to acknowledge any of these as a sacrament. marriage, he says, in its sacramental aspect, was not an institution of the new testament, nor was it connected with any especial promise of grace. it was but a holy moral ordinance of daily life, existing since the beginning of the world and among those who were not christians as well as those who were. at the same time he takes the opportunity to protest against those human regulations with which even this ordinance had been invaded by the romish church, especially against the arbitrary obstacles to marriage she had created. even these were made a source of revenue to her, by the granting of dispensations. for the other three sacraments there was no especial promise. in the epistle of st. james (v. ), where it speaks of anointing the sick with oil, the allusion is not to extreme unction to the dying, but to the exercise of that wonderful apostolic gift of healing the sick through the power of faith and prayer. with regard to the consecration of priests, luther repeats the principles laid down in his address to the nobility. ordination consists simply of this, that out of a community, all of whom are priests, one is chosen for the particular work of administering god's word. if, as in consecration, the hand is laid upon him, this is a human custom and not instituted by the lord himself. but in truth, says luther, the outrageous tyranny of the clergy, with their priestly bodily anointing, their tonsure, and their dress, would arrogate a higher position than other christians anointed with the spirit; these are counted almost as unworthy as dogs to belong to the church. and most seriously he warns a man not to strive for that outward anointing, unless he is earnestly intent on the true service of the gospel, and has disclaimed all pretension to become, by consecration, better than lay christians. in conclusion luther declares: he hears that papal excommunication is prepared for him, to force him to recant. in that case this little treatise shall form part of his recantation. after that he will soon publish the rest, the like of which has never been seen or heard by the romish see. in the beginning of october, probably on the th of that month, the book was issued. luther had heard some ten days before that eck had actually arrived with the bull. he had already caused it to be posted publicly at meissen on september . early in october he sent a copy of it also to the university of wittenberg. chapter viii. the bull of excommunication, and luther's reply. at rome, the bull, now newly arrived in germany, had been published as early as june . it had been considered, when at length, under the pressure of the influences described above, the subject was taken up in earnest, very carefully in the papal consistory. the jurists there were of opinion that luther should be cited once more, but their views did not prevail. as for the negotiations, conducted through miltitz, for an examination of luther before the archbishop of treves, no heed was now paid to the affair. the bull begins with the words, 'arise, o lord, and avenge thy cause.' it proceeds to invoke st. peter, st. paul, the whole body of the saints, and the church. a wild boar had broken into the vineyard of the lord, a wild beast was there seeking to devour &c. of the heresy against which it was directed, the pope, as he states, had additional reason to complain, since the germans, among whom it had broken out, had always been regarded by him with such tender affection: he gives them to understand that they owed the empire to the romish church. forty-one propositions from luther's writings are then rejected and condemned, as heretical or at least scandalous and corrupting, and his works collectively are sentenced to be burnt. as to luther himself, the pope calls god to witness that he has neglected no means of fatherly love to bring him into the right way. even now he is ready to follow towards him the example of divine mercy which wills not the death of a sinner, but that he should be converted and live; and so once more he calls upon him to repent, in which case he will receive him graciously like the prodigal son. sixty days are given him to recant. but if he and his adherents will not repent, they are to be regarded as obstinate heretics and withered branches of the vine of christ, and must be punished according to law. no doubt the punishment of burning was meant; the bull in fact expressly condemns the proposition of luther which denounces the burning of heretics. all this was called then at rome, and has been called even latterly by the papal party, 'the tone rather of fatherly sorrow than of penal severity.' the means by which the bull had been brought about, made it fitting that eck himself should be commissioned with its circulation throughout germany, and especially with its publication in saxony. more than this, he received the unheard of permission to denounce any of the adherents of luther at his pleasure, when he published the bull. accordingly, eck had the bull publicly posted up in september at meissen, merseburg, and brandenburg. he was charged, moreover, by a papal brief, in the event of luther's refusing to submit, to call upon the temporal power to punish the heretic. but at leipzig, where the magistrate, by order of duke george, had to present him with a goblet full of money, he was so hustled in the streets by his indignant opponents, that he was forced to take refuge in the convent of st. paul, and hastened to pursue his journey by night, whilst the city officials rode about the neighbourhood with the bull. a number of wittenberg students, adds miltitz, made their appearance also at leipzig, who 'behaved in a good-for-nothing way towards him.' at wittenberg, where the publication of the bull rested with the university, the latter notified its arrival to the elector, and objected for various reasons to publish it, alleging, in particular, that eck, its sender, was not furnished with proper authority from the pope. luther for the first time felt himself, as he wrote to spalatin, really free, being at length convinced that the popedom was antichrist and the seat of satan. he was not at all discouraged by a letter sent at this time by erasmus from holland to wittenberg, saying that no hopes could be placed in the emperor charles, as he was in the hands of the mendicant friars. as for the bull, so extraordinary were its contents, that he wished to consider it a forgery. still the promise which luther had given to his augustinian brethren, only a few weeks before, under pressure from miltitz, remained as yet unfulfilled. nor did miltitz himself wish the threads of the web then spun to slip from his fingers. even at this hour, with the consent and at the wish of the elector, an interview had been arranged between miltitz and luther at the castle of lichtenberg (now lichtenburg, in the district of torgau), where the monks of st. antony were then housed. just as miltitz, as we have seen, had thought to be able to avert the bull by getting luther to write a letter to the pope, so now he promised the elector still to conciliate the pope by that means. only the letter was to be dated back to the time, before the publication of the bull, when luther first gave his consent to write it. its substance was to be as then agreed upon; luther, as miltitz expressed it, was to 'eulogise the pope personally in a manner agreeable to him,' and at the same time submit to him an historical statement of what he had done. luther consented to publish a letter in these terms, in latin and german, under date of september , and immediately gave effect to his promise. it is hardly conceivable how miltitz could still have nurtured such a hope. neither his wish to ingratiate himself with the elector frederick, and to checkmate the plans of eck whom he detested, nor his personal vanity and flippancy of character, are sufficient to account for it. he must have learnt from his own previous personal intercourse with the pope, and his experiences of the papal court, that leo did not take up church questions and controversies so gravely and so seriously as not to remain fully open all the time to influences and considerations of other kinds, and that around him were parties and influential personages, arrayed in mutual hostility and rivalry. he must have been strangely ignorant of the state of things at rome. but as to luther and his cause there was no longer any hesitation in that quarter. in what sense luther himself was willing to comply with the demand of miltitz, the contents of his letter suffice to show. he makes it clear that nothing was further from his intention than to appease the angry pontiff by any dexterous artifices or concealments. the assurance required from him, that he had no wish to attack the pope personally, he construes in its literal terms, apart altogether from the official character and acts of leo. and in fact against his personal character and conduct he had never said a word. but he takes this opportunity, at the same time, of speaking to him plainly, as a christian is bound to do to his fellow-christian; of repeating to him, face to face, the severest charges yet made by him against the romish chair; of excusing leo's own conduct in this chair simply and solely on the ground that he regarded him as a victim of the monstrous corruption which surrounded him, and of warning him once more against it as a brother. he tells him to his face that he himself, the holy father, must acknowledge that the papal see was more wicked and shameful than any sodom, gomorrah, or babylon; that god's wrath had fallen upon it without ceasing; that rome, which had once been the gate of heaven, was now an open jaw of hell. most earnestly he warns leo against his flatterers,--the 'ear-ticklers' who would make him a god. he assures him that he wishes him all that is good, and therefore he wishes that he should not be devoured by these jaws of hell, but on the contrary, should be freed from this godless idolatry of parasites, and be placed in a position where he would be able to live on some smaller ecclesiastical preferment, or on his own patrimony. as for the historical retrospect which miltitz wanted, and which luther briefly appends to this letter, all that the latter says in vindication of himself is, that it was not his own fault, but that of his enemies, who had driven him further and further onward, that 'no small part of the unchristian doings at rome had been dragged to light.' [illustration: fig. .--title-page, slightly reduced, of the original tract 'on the liberty of a christian man.' the saxon swords are represented above, and the arms of wittenberg below.] luther sent with this letter, as a present to the pope, a pamphlet entitled 'on the liberty of a christian man.' this is no controversial treatise intended for the great struggle of churchmen and theologians, but a tract to minister to 'simple men.' for their benefit he wished to describe compendiously the 'sum of a christian life'; to deal thoroughly with the question, 'what was a christian? and how he was to use the liberty which christ had won and given to him.' he premises as an axiom that a christian is a free lord over all things, and subject to nobody. he considers, first of all, the new, inner, spiritual man, and asks what makes him a good and free christian. nothing external, he says, can make him either good or free. it does not profit the soul if the body puts on sacred vestments, or fasts, or prays with the lips. to make the soul live, and be good and free, there is nothing else in heaven or on earth but the holy scriptures, in other words, god's word of comfort by his dear son jesus christ, through whom our sins are forgiven us. in this word the soul has perfect joy, happiness, peace, light, and all good things in abundance. and to obtain this, nothing more is required of the soul than what is told us in the scriptures, namely, to give itself to jesus with firm faith and to trust joyfully in him. at first, no doubt, god's command must terrify a man, seeing that it must be fulfilled, or man condemned; but when once he has been brought thereby to recognise his own worthlessness, then comes god's promise and the gospel, and says, have faith in christ, in whom i promise thee all grace; believe in him, and thou hast him. a right faith so blends the soul with god's word, that the virtues of the latter become her own, as the iron becomes glowing hot from its union with the fire. and the soul becomes joined to christ as a bride to the bridegroom; her wedding-ring is faith. all that christ, the rich and noble bridegroom possesses, he makes his bride's; all that she has, he takes unto himself. he takes upon himself her sins, so that they are swallowed up in him and in his unconquerable righteousness. thus the christian is exalted above all things, and becomes a lord; for nothing can injure his salvation; everything must be subject to him and help towards his salvation; it is a spiritual kingdom. and thus all christians are priests; they can all approach god through christ, and pray for others. 'who can comprehend the honour and dignity of a christian? through his kingship he has power over all things, through his priesthood he has power over god, for god does what he desires and prays for.' but the christian, as luther states in his second axiom, is not only this new inner man. he has another will in his flesh, which would make him captive to sin. accordingly, he dare not be idle, but must work hard to drive out evil lusts and mortify his body. he lives, moreover, among other men on earth, and must labour together with them. and as christ, though himself full of the kingdom of god, for our sake stripped himself of his power and ministered as a servant, so should we christians, to whom god through christ has given the kingdom of all goodness and blessedness, and therewith all that is sufficient to satisfy us, do freely and cheerfully for our heavenly father whatever pleases him, and do unto our neighbours as christ has done for us. in particular, we must not despise the weakness and weak faith of our neighbour, nor vex him with the use of our liberty, but rather minister with all we have to his improvement. thus the christian, who is a free lord and master, becomes a useful servant of all and subject to all. but he does these works, not that he may become thereby good and blessed in the sight of god; he is already blessed through his faith, and what he does now he does freely and gratuitously. luther thus sums up in conclusion: 'a christian lives not in himself, but in christ and in his neighbour; in christ through faith, in his neighbour through love. through faith he rises above himself in god, from god he descends again below himself through love; and yet remains always in god and in godlike love.' this tract was a remarkable pendant to luther's remarkable letter to the pope. his holiness, so he wrote to him in his dedication, might taste from its contents what kind of occupation the author would rather, and might with more profit, be engaged in, if only the godless papal flatterers did not hinder him. and in fact the pope could plainly see from it how luther lived and laboured, with his inmost being, in these profound but simple ideas of christian truth, and how he was inwardly compelled and delighted to represent them in their noble simplicity. the whole tone and tenor of this dedication, so tranquil, fervent, and tender, shows further what profound peace reigned in the soul of this vehement champion of the faith, and what happiness the excommunicated heretic found in his god. next to luther's address to the german nobility and his babylonian captivity, this tract is one of the most important contributions of his pen to the cause of the reformation. it is clear from its pages that when luther wrote his letter, at the request of miltitz, to the pope, he had no thought of making peace with the papacy, or of even a moment's truce in the campaign. the bull of excommunication he met in the manner intimated to spalatin from the first. he launched a short tract against it, 'on the new bull and falsehoods of eck,' treating it as eck's forgery. this he followed up with another tract in german and latin, 'against the bull of antichrist.' he was resolved to unmask the blindness and wickedness of the roman evil-doers. he saw partly his own real doctrines perverted, partly the christian and scriptural truth that his doctrines contained, stigmatised as heresy and condemned. he declared that if the pope did not retract and condemn this bull, no one would doubt that he was the enemy of god and the disturber of christianity. he then solemnly renewed, on november , the appeal to a council, which he had made two years before. but how was his attitude changed since then! he, the accused and condemned heretic, now himself proclaims condemnation and ruin to his enemy, the antichristian power that seeks to domineer the world. nor is it only from a future council, and one constituted as the previous great assemblies of the church, that he expects and demands protection for himself and the christian truth; again and again he calls upon the christian laity to assist him. thus in his appeal now published, he invites the emperor charles, the electors and princes of the empire, the counts, barons, and nobles, the town councils, and all christian authorities throughout germany, to support him and his appeal, that so the true christian belief and the freedom of a council might be saved. similarly, in the latin edition of his tract against the bull, he calls upon the emperor charles, on christian kings and princes and all who believe in christ, together with all christian bishops and learned doctors, to resist the iniquities of the popedom. in his german version he defends himself against the charge of stirring up the laity against the pope and priesthood; but he asks if, indeed, the laity will be reconciled, or the pope excused, by the command to burn the truth. the pope himself, he says, and his bishops, priests, and monks are wrestling to their own downfall, through this iniquitous bull, and want to bring upon themselves the hatred of the laity. 'what wonder were it, should princes, nobles, and laymen beat them on the head, and hunt them out of the country?' hutten now followed with a stormy demand for a general rising of germany against the tyranny of rome, whose hirelings and emissaries were to be chased away by main force. when two papal legates, aleander and caraccioli, appeared on the rhine to execute the bull and work upon the emperor in person, he was anxious to strike a blow at them on his own account, little good as, on calm reflection, it was evident could have come of it. luther, on hearing of it, could not refrain remarking in a letter to spalatin, 'if only he had caught them!' luther however persisted in repeating to himself and his friends the warning of the psalmist, 'put not your trust in princes, nor in any child of man, for there is no help in them.' nay, when spalatin, who had gone with the elector to the emperor, told him how little was to be hoped for from the latter, he expressed to him his joy at finding that he too had learned the same lesson. god, he said, would never have entrusted simple fishermen with the gospel, if it had needed worldly potentates to propagate it. it was to the last day that he looked with full confidence for the overthrow of antichrist. and, indeed, his idea that antichrist had long reigned at rome was connected in his mind with the belief that the last day was close at hand. of this, as he wrote to spalatin, he was convinced, and for many strong reasons. and in fact the emperor charles, before leaving the netherlands, on his journey to aix-la-chapelle to be crowned, had already been induced by aleander to take his first step against luther. he had consented to the execution of the sentence in the bull, condemning luther's works to be burnt, and had issued orders to that effect throughout the netherlands. they were burnt in public at louvain, cologne, and mayence. at cologne this was done while he was staying there. it was in this town that the two legates approached the elector frederick with the demand to have the same done in his territory, and to execute due punishment on the heretic himself, or at least to keep him close prisoner, or deliver him over to the pope. frederick however refused, saying that luther must first be heard by impartial judges. erasmus also, who was then staying at cologne, expressed himself to the same effect, in an opinion obtained from him by frederick through spalatin. at an interview with the elector he said to him, 'luther has committed two great faults; he has touched the pope on his crown and the monks on their bellies.' the archbishop of mayence, cardinal albert, received directions from the pope to take more decisive and energetic steps against hutten as well. the burning of luther's books at mayence was effected without hindrance, though hutten was able to inform luther that, according to the account received from a friend, aleander narrowly escaped stoning, and the multitude were all the more inflamed in favour of luther. the legates in triumph proceeded to carry out their mission elsewhere. luther, however, lost no time in following up their execution of the bull with his reply. on december he posted a public announcement that the next morning, at nine o'clock, the antichristian decretals, that is, the papal law-books, would be burnt, and he invited all the wittenberg students to attend. he chose for this purpose a spot in front of the elster gate, to the east of the town, near the augustinian convent. a multitude poured forth to the scene. with luther appeared a number of other doctors and masters, and among them melancthon and carlstadt. after one of the masters of arts had built up a pile, luther laid the decretals upon it, and the former applied the fire. luther then threw the papal bull into the flames, with the words 'because thou hast vexed the holy one of the lord, [footnote: it is obvious that he refers to christ, who is spoken of in scripture as the holy one of god (st. mark i. , acts ii. ), not, as ignorance and malice have suggested, to himself.] let the everlasting fire consume thee.' whilst luther with the other teachers returned to the town, some hundreds of students remained upon the scene, and sang a te deum, and a dirge for the decretals. after the ten o'clock meal, some of the young students, grotesquely attired, drove through the town in a large carriage, with a banner emblazoned with a bull four yards in length, amidst the blowing of brass trumpets and other absurdities. they collected from all quarters a mass of scholastic and papal writings, and especially those of eck, and hastened with them and the bull, to the pile, which their companions had meanwhile kept alight. another te deum was then sung, with a requiem, and the hymn 'o du armer judas.' luther at his lecture the next day told his hearers with great earnestness and emotion what he had done. the papal chair he said, would yet have to be burnt. unless with all their hearts they abjured the kingdom of the pope, they could not obtain salvation. he next announced and justified his act in a short treatise entitled 'why the books of the pope and his disciples were burnt by dr. martin luther.' 'i, martin luther,' he says, 'doctor of holy scripture, an augustinian of wittenberg, make known hereby to everyone, that by my wish, advice, and act, on monday after st. nicholas' day, in the year , the books of the pope of rome, and of some of his disciples, were burnt. if anyone wonders, as i fully expect they will, and asks for what reason and by whose command i did it, let this be his answer.' luther considers it his bounden duty, as a baptized christian, a sworn doctor of holy scripture, and a daily preacher, to root out, on account of his office, all unchristian doctrines. the example of others, on whom the same duty devolved, but who shrank from doing as he did, would not deter him. 'i should not,' he says, 'be excused in my own sight; of that my conscience is assured, and my spirit, by god's grace, has been roused to the necessary courage.' he then proceeds to cite from the law-books thirty erroneous doctrines, in glorification of the papacy, which deserved to be burnt. the sum total of this canon law was as follows: 'the pope is a god on earth, above all things, heavenly and earthly, spiritual and temporal, and everything is his, since no one durst say, what doest thou?' this, says luther, is the abomination of desolation (st: matth. xxiv. ), or in other words antichrist ( thess. ii. ). simultaneously with this, he set out in a longer and exhaustive work the 'ground and reason' of all his own articles which had been condemned by the bull. he takes his stand upon god's word in scripture against the dogmas of the earthly god;--upon the revelation by god himself, which, to everyone who studies it deeply and with devotion, will lighten his understanding, and make clear its substance and meaning. what though, as he is reminded, he is only a solitary, humble man, he is sure of this, that god's word is with him. to staupitz, who felt faint-hearted and desponding about the bull, luther wrote, saying that, when burning it, he trembled at first and prayed; but now he felt more rejoiced than at any other act in all his life. he now released himself finally from the restraints of those monastic rules, with which, as we have remarked before, he had always tormented himself, besides performing the higher duties of his calling. he was freed now, as he wrote to his friend lange, by the authority of the bull, from the commands of his order and of the pope, being now an excommunicated man. of this he was glad; he retained merely the garb and lodging of a monk: he had more than enough of real duties to perform with his daily lectures and sermons, with his constant writings, educational, edifying, and polemical, and with his letters, discourses, and the assistance he was able to give his brethren. by this bold act, luther consummated his final rupture with the papal system, which for centuries had dominated the christian world, and had identified itself with christianity. the news of it must also have made the fire which his words had kindled throughout germany, blaze out in all its violence. he saw now, as he wrote to staupitz, a storm raging, such as only the last day could allay; so fiercely were passions aroused on both sides. germany was then, in fact, in a state of excitement and tension more critical than at any other period of her history. side by side with luther stood hutten, in the forefront of the battle with rome. the bull he published with sarcastic comments: the burning of luther's works of devotion he denounced in latin and german verses. eberlin von günzburg, who shortly after began to wield his pen as a popular writer on reform, called these two men 'two chosen messengers of god.' a german litany, which appeared early in , implored god's grace and help for martin luther, the unshaken pillar of the christian faith, and for the brave german knight ulrich hutten, his pylades. hutten also wrote now in german for the german people, both in prose and verse. during his stay with sickingen in the winter at his castle of ebernburg, he read to him luther's works, which roused in this powerful warrior an active sympathy with the doctrines of the reformation, and stirred up projects in his mind, of what his own strong arm could accomplish for the good cause. pamphlets, both anonymous and pseudonymous, were circulated in increasing numbers among the people. they took the form chiefly of dialogues, in which laymen, in a simple christian spirit, and with their natural understanding, complain of the needs of christendom, ask questions and are enlightened. the outward evils of the papal system are put clearly before the people:--the scandals among the priesthood and in the convents, the iniquities of the romish courtiers and creatures of the pope, who pandered with menial subservience to the magnates at rome, in order to fatten on german benefices, and reap their harvest of taxes and extortions of every kind. the simple word of god, with its sublime evangelical truths, must be freed from the sophistries woven round it by man, and be made accessible to all without distinction. luther is represented as its foremost champion, and a true man of the people, whose testimony penetrated to the heart. his portrait, as painted by cranach, was circulated together with his small tracts. in later editions the holy ghost appears in the form of a dove hovering above his head; his enemies spread the calumny, that luther intended this emblem to represent himself. satirical pictures also were used as weapons on both sides in this contest. cranach pourtrayed the meek and suffering saviour on one side, and on the other the arrogant roman antichrist, in the twenty-six woodcuts of his 'passion of christ and antichrist:' luther added short texts to these pictures. luther's enemies now began, on their side, to write in german and for the people. the most talented among them, as regards vigorous, popular german and coarse satire, was the franciscan thomas murner; but his theology seemed to luther so weak, that he only favoured him once with a brief allusion. he entered now into a longer literary duel with the dresden theologian emser, who had challenged him after the disputation at leipzig, and who now published a work 'against the unchristian address of martin luther to the german nobility.' luther replied with a tract 'to the goat at leipzig,' emser with another 'to the bull at wittenberg,' luther with another 'on the answer of the goat at leipzig,' and emser with a third, 'on the furious answer of the bull at wittenberg.' luther, whose reply to emser's original work had been directed to the first sheets that appeared, met the work, when published in its complete form, with his 'answer to the over-christian, over-priestly, over-artful book of the goat emser.' emser followed up with a 'quadruplica,' to which luther rejoined with another treatise entitled 'a refutation by doctor luther of emser's error, extorted by the most learned priest of god, h. emser.' when later, during luther's residence at the wartburg, emser published a reply, luther let him have the last word. nothing new was contributed to the great struggle by this interchange of polemics. the most effective point made by emser and the other defenders of the old church system, was the old charge that luther, one man, presumed to oppose the whole of christendom as hitherto constituted, and by the overthrow of all foundations and authorities of the church, to bring unbelief, distraction, and disturbance upon church and state. thus emser says once in german doggrel, that luther imagined that what church and fathers teach was nought; none lived but luther;--so he thought. in threatening luther with the consequences of his heresy, he never failed to hold up huss as a bugbear. in germany, as emser complains, there was already 'such quarrelling, noise, and uproar, that not a district, town, village, or house was free from partisans, and one man was against another.' aleander wrote to rome saying that everywhere exasperation and excitement prevailed, and the papal bull was laughed at. among the adherents of the old church system one heard rumours of strange and terrible import. a letter written shortly after the burning of the bull, gave out that luther reckoned on thirty-five thousand bohemians, and as many saxons and other north germans, who were ready, like the goths and vandals of old, to march on italy and rome. but it was evident, even at this stage, that from rancorous words to energetic and self-sacrificing action was a long step to take. even in central germany the bull was executed without any disturbance breaking out; and that in the bishoprics of meissen and merseburg, which were adjacent to wittenberg. pirkheimer and spengler at nüremberg, whose names eck had included in the bull, now bowed to the authority of the pope, represented though it was by their personal enemy. hutten, who saw his hopes in the emperor's brother deceived, and believed his own liberty and even his life was menaced by the papal bull, burned with impatient ardour to strike a blow. he was anxious also to see whether a resort to force, after his own meaning of the term, would meet with any support from the elector frederick. he ventured even, when speaking of sickingen's lofty mission, to refer to the precedent of ziska, the powerful champion of the hussites, who had once been the terror and abomination of the germans. he, a member of the proud equestrian order, was willing now to join hands with the towns and the burghers to do battle with rome for the liberty of germany. but, passionate as were his words, it was by no means clear what particular end under present circumstances he sought to achieve by means of arms. sickingen, who had grasped the situation in a practical spirit, advised him to moderate his impatience, and sought, for his own part, to keep on good terms with the emperor, in whom hutten accordingly renewed his hopes. each, in short, had overrated the influence which sickingen really possessed with the emperor. in this posture of affairs, luther reverted, with increased conviction, to his original opinion, that the future must be left with god alone, without trusting to the help of man. hutten himself had written to him, during the diet of worms, as follows: 'i will fight manfully with you for christ; but our counsels differ in this respect, that mine are human, while you, more perfect than i am, trust solely in those of god.' and when hutten seemed really bent on taking the sword, luther declared to him and to others, with all decision of purpose: 'i would not have man fight with force and bloodshed for the gospel. by the word has the world been subdued, by the word has the church been preserved, by the word will she be restored. as antichrist has begun without a blow, so without a blow will antichrist be crushed by the word.' even against the romish hirelings among the german clergy, he would have no acts of violence committed, such as were committed in bohemia. he had not laboured with the german nobility to have such men restrained by the sword, but by advice and command. he was only afraid that their own rage would not allow of peaceful means to check them, but would bring misery and disaster upon their heads. his expectation--not indeed ungrounded--of the approaching end of the world, to which, as we have seen, he alluded in a letter to spalatin on january , , luther now announced more fully in a book, written in answer to an attack by the romish theologian ambrosius catharinus. he based his opinion on the prophecies of the old and new testament, on which christian men and christian communities, sore pressed in the battle with the powers of darkness, had been wont ere then to rely, in the sure hope of the approaching victory of god. luther referred in particular to the vision of daniel (chap. viii.), where he states that after the four great kingdoms of the world, the last of which luther takes to be the roman empire, a bold and crafty ruler should rise up, and 'by his policy should cause craft to prosper in his hand, and should stand up against the prince of princes, but should be broken without hand.' he saw this vision fulfilled in the popedom; which must, therefore, be destroyed 'without hand,' or outward force. st. paul, in his view, said the same in the passage in which ( thess. ii.) he foreshadowed long before the roman antichrist. that 'man of sin' who set himself up as god in the temple of god, 'the lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.' so, said luther, the pope and his kingdom would not be destroyed by the laity, but would be reserved for a heavier punishment until the coming of christ. he must fall, as he had raised himself, not 'with the hand,' but with the spirit of satan. the spirit must kill the spirit; the truth must reveal deceit. luther, as we shall see, had all his life held firmly to this belief that the end was near. as his glowing zeal pictured the loftiest images and contrasts to his mind, so also this assurance of victory was already before his eyes. in his hope of the near completion of the earthly history of christianity and mankind, he became the instrument of carving out a new grand chapter in its career. the announcement of the retractation required from luther by the bull, was to have been sent to rome within days. luther had given his answer. the pope declared that the time of grace had expired; and on the rd of january leo x. finally pronounced the ban against luther and his followers, and an interdict on the places where they were harboured. chapter ix. the diet of worms. if we consider the powerful influences then at work to further the ecclesiastical movement in germany, it seems reasonable to suppose that they would succeed in accomplishing its ends through the power of the word alone, without any such bloodshed and political convulsions as were feared; and that germany, therefore, though vexed with spiritual tempests--the 'tumult and uproar' whose outburst luther already discerned--must inevitably rid herself of the forms and fetters of romish churchdom, by the sheer force of her new religious convictions. and, indeed, even in the short interval since luther had commenced, and only with slow steps had advanced further in the contest, a success had been attained which no one at the beginning could have ventured to expect, or even hope for. frederick the wise, the nestor among the great german princes of the empire, had plainly freed himself inwardly from those fetters, and though, as yet, he did not feel himself called upon to express his sentiments by decisive action, his conduct, nevertheless, could not fail to make an impression on those about him. the nobility and burgher class, among whom the new doctrines had made most progress, were, politically speaking, powerfully represented at the diets. the most important of the spiritual lords, the archbishop of magdeburg and mayence, who had most cause to resent luther's onslaught on indulgences, had hitherto adopted a cautious and expectant attitude, which left him free to join at some future time a national revolt against his romish sovereign. the diets, indeed, had hitherto submitted to their old ecclesiastical grievances without any fear of the wrath or scolding of the pope. but, as soon as the conviction prevailed among the estates, that the pretensions of the roman see had no eternal, divine foundation, they could take in hand at once, on their own account, the reformation of the church. as for the episcopacy, in particular, luther had never desired, as his address to the nobility sufficiently showed, to interfere with or disturb it in any way, provided only the bishops would feed their flocks according to god's word. an independent german episcopate would then have been well able to undertake the reforms necessary in the system of worship. luther himself, as we shall see, wished and continued to wish that those reforms should be as few and simple as possible. in the various german states which afterwards became protestant, the work of reform was in fact accomplished, without any serious agitation, by the princes themselves, in concert with their estates; and in the free towns by the magistrates and representatives of the burghers, notwithstanding the fact that its opponents were supported by the majority of the empire and by the emperor himself, who was a staunch adherent of the romish system. how much easier, in comparison, must the work of evangelical reformation have been, had it been resolved on by the power of the empire itself, in accord with the overwhelming voice of the whole nation. reference was made, and in significant terms, to the savage and cruel war of the hussites. but no one could deny to luther's teaching, a clearness, a religious depth, and a freedom from fanaticism, peculiar to itself, and utterly wanting in the preaching of the followers of huss. again, the wild hussite wars, which were still fresh in the sorrowful memory of the germans, had in the first instance been provoked by the use of force, on the part of the church, against the bohemians. when germany revolted, rome found no such means of force at her command. it might fairly be questioned, if the thought were worth pursuing, whether luther at that time had sufficient ground for looking for the triumph of his cause, not indeed to the power of the word and the influences then active in his favour, but to the day of the lord, which he believed was near. it is true that in such great crises of history as this, the final issue never depends alone on the character and conduct of particular personages, however eminent they may be. in this antichristian system of the papacy, luther saw satanic powers at work, which blinded the human heart, and might indeed succeed, by dint of suffering and oppression, in overcoming for the moment the word of god, but which could never finally extirpate or extinguish it. and we protestants must confess that not only did a great mass of the german people remain bound by the spell of tradition, but that even to honest and independent-minded adherents of the old system, the interests of religion and morality might in reality have seemed to be seriously endangered by the new teaching and by the breach with the past. but never did the most momentous issue in the fortunes of the german nation and church rest so entirely with one man as they did now with the german emperor. everything depended on this, whether he, as head of the empire, should take the great work in hand, or should fling his authority and might into the opposite scale. charles had been welcomed in germany as one whose youthful heart seemed likely to respond to the newly-awakened life and aspirations; as the son of an old german princely family, who by his election as emperor had won a triumph over the foreign king francis, supported though the latter was by the pope. rumour now alleged that he was in the hands of the mendicant friars: the franciscan glapio was his confessor and influential adviser, the very man who had instigated the burning of luther's works. [illustration: fig. .--charles v. (from an engraving by b. beham, in .)] he was, however, by no means so dependent on those about him as might have been supposed. his counsellors, in the general interests of his government, pursued an independent line of policy, and charles himself, even in these his youthful days, knew to assert his independence as a monarch and display his cleverness as a statesman. but a german he was not, in spite of his grandfather maximilian; he had not even an ordinary knowledge of the german language. first and foremost, he was king of spain and naples; in his spanish kingdom he retained, even after his accession to the imperial dignity, the chief basis of his power. his religious training and education had familiarised him only with the strict orthodoxy of the church and his duties in respect to her traditional ordinances. to these his conscience also constrained him to adhere. he never showed any inclination to investigate the opposite opinions of his german subjects, at least with any independent or critical exercise of judgment. a strict regard to his rights and duties as a sovereign was his sole guide, next to his religious principles, in dictating his conduct towards the church. in spain some reforms were being then introduced, based essentially on the doctrines and hierarchical constitution of the mediaeval church. stricter discipline, in particular, was observed with regard to the clergy and monks, who were admonished to attend more faithfully to their duties of promoting the moral and religious welfare of the people; and the result was seen in a revival of popular interest in the forms and ordinances of religion. furthermore, the crown enjoyed certain rights independently of the roman curia: an absolute monarchy was here ingeniously united with papal absolutism. such a union, however, sufficed in itself to make any severance of the german church from the papacy impossible under charles v. the unity of his dominions was bound up with the unity of the catholic church, to which his subjects, alike in spain and germany, belonged. added to this, he had to consider his foreign policy. provoked as he had been by leo x., who had leagued with france to prevent his election, still, with menaces of war from france, he saw the prudence of cultivating friendship, and contracting, if possible, an alliance with the pope. the pressure desirable for this purpose could now be supplied by means of the very danger with which the papacy was threatened by the great german heresy, and against which rome so sorely needed the aid of a temporal power. at the same time, charles was far too astute to allow his regard for the pope, and his desire for the unity of the church, to entangle his policy in measures for which his own power was inadequate, or by which his authority might be shaken, and possibly destroyed. strengthened as was his monarchical power in spain, in germany he found it hemmed in and fettered by the estates of the empire and the whole contexture of political relations. such were the main points of view which determined for charles v. his conduct towards luther and his cause. luther thus was at least a passive sharer in the game of high policy, ecclesiastical and temporal, now being played, and had to pursue his own course accordingly. the imperial court was quickly enough acquainted with the state of feeling in germany. the emperor showed himself prudent at this juncture, and accessible to opinions differing from his own, however small cause his proclamations gave to the friends of luther to hope for any positive act of favour on his part. whilst charles was on his way up the rhine, to hold, at the beginning of the new year, a diet at worms, the elector frederick approached him with the request that luther should at least be heard before the emperor took any proceedings against him. the emperor informed him in reply that he might bring luther for this purpose to worms, promising that the monk should not be molested. the elector, however, felt doubts on this point: possibly he thought of the danger to which huss had been exposed at constance. but luther, to whom he announced through spalatin the emperor's offer, replied immediately, 'if i am summoned, i will, so far as i am concerned, come; even if i have to be carried there ill; for no man can doubt that, if the emperor calls me, i am called by the lord.' violence, he said, would no doubt be offered him; but god still lived, who had delivered the three youths from the fiery furnace at babylon, and if it was not his will that he should be saved, his head was of little value. there was one thing only to beseech of god, that the emperor might not commence his reign by shedding innocent blood to shield ungodliness: he would far rather perish by the hands of the romanists alone. some time before, luther had thought of a place to fly to, in case it were impossible to stay at wittenberg; bohemia was always open to him. but now he roundly declared, 'i will not fly, still less can i recant.' meanwhile the emperor began to reflect whether luther, who lay already under the ban and interdict, ought to be admitted to the place of the diet. as to what proceedings should be taken against him, if he came, long, wavering, and anxious negotiations now took place between the emperor, the estates, and the legate aleander, at worms, where the estates assembled in january, and the diet was opened on the th. a papal brief demanded the emperor to enforce the bull, by which luther was now definitely condemned, by an imperial edict. in vain, he wrote, had god girded him with the sword of supreme earthly power, if he did not use it against heretics, who were even worse than infidels. his advisers, however, were agreed in the conviction that he could not move in this matter without the consent of his estates. aleander sought to gain them over in an elaborate harangue. he, according to whose principles the appeal to a council was a crime, cleverly diverted from himself the comparison and retort which his present arguments suggested, and insisted all the more on his complaint, that luther always despised the authority of councils and would take no correction from anyone. glapio, then the emperor's confessor and diplomatist, addressed himself, with expressions of wonderful friendship, to frederick's chancellor, brück. even he found much that was good in luther's writings, but the contents of his book, the 'babylonian captivity,' were detestable. all that need be done was that luther should disclaim or retract that offensive work, so that what was good in his writings might bear fruit for the church, and luther, together with the emperor, might co-operate in the work of true reform. he might be invited to meet some learned, impartial men at a suitable place, and submit himself to their judgment. this, at all events, would be a happy means of preventing his having to appear before the emperor and the estates of the empire, and if he persisted in refusing to recant, of deciding then and there his fate. we must leave it an open question, how far glapio still seriously thought it possible, by dint of threats and entreaties, to utilise luther for effecting a reform in the spanish sense, and as an instrument against any pope who should prove hostile to the emperor. but the elector frederick would undertake no responsibility in this dark design: he refused flatly to grant to glapio the private audience he desired. the emperor acceded so far to the urgency of the pope as to cause a draft mandate to be laid before the estates, proposing that luther should be arrested, and his protectors punished for high treason. the frankfort deputy wrote home: 'the monk makes plenty of work. some would gladly crucify him, and i fear he will hardly escape them; only they must take care that he does not rise again on the third day.' after seven days' excited debate in the diet, in which the elector took a prominent and lively part, an answer to the imperial mandate was at length agreed upon, offering for consideration 'whether, inasmuch as luther's preaching, doctrines, and writings had awakened among the common people all kinds of thoughts, fancies, and desires, any good result or advantage would accrue from issuing the mandate alone in all its stringency, without first having cited luther before them and heard him.' at the same time, his examination was to be so far restricted, that no discussion with him should be allowed, but simply the question put to him, 'whether or not he intended to insist upon the writings he had published against our holy christian faith.' if he retracted them, he should be heard further on other points and matters, and dealt with in all equity upon them. if, on the contrary, he persisted in all or any of the articles at variance with the faith, then all the estates of the empire should, without further disputation, adhere to and help to maintain the faith handed down by their fathers, and the imperial edict should then go abroad throughout the land. the emperor, accordingly, on march , issued a citation to luther, summoning him to worms, to give 'information concerning his doctrines and books.' an imperial herald was sent to conduct him. in the event of his disobeying the citation, or refusing to retract, the estates declared their consent to treat him as an open heretic. luther, therefore, had to renounce at once all hope of having the truth touching his articles of faith tested fairly at worms by the standard of god's word in scripture. spalatin indicated to him the points on which, according to glapio's statement, he would in any case be expected to make a public recantation. it remained still doubtful, however, how far those articles would be extended, and how far the 'other points' might be stretched, or possibly be made the subject of further and profitable discussion, if he submitted in respect to the former. glapio had made no reference to the question of the patristic belief in the infallibility of the pope, or his absolute power over the church collectively and her councils: even the papal nuncio himself had not ventured to touch on these subjects. there was room enough for the more liberal and independent principles entertained on these points by the members of the earlier reforming councils, if only luther had not disputed their authority with that of councils altogether. the ecclesiastical abuses, against which the diet had already remonstrated to the pope, were just now at worms the subject of general and bitter complaint. the imposts levied by rome on ecclesiastical benefices and fiefs, mere outward symbols of supremacy it is true, but highly important to the pope, swallowed up enormous sums; while the empire hardly knew how to scrape together a miserable subsidy for the newly organised government and the expenses of justice, and men talked openly of retaining these papal tributes, notwithstanding all protests from rome, for these purposes. even faithful adherents of the old church system, like duke george of saxony, demanded a comprehensive reformation of the clergy, whose scandals were so destructive of religion, and, as the best means to effect this reformation, a general council of the church. aleander had to report to rome, that all parties were unanimous in this desire, so hateful to the pope himself, and that the germans wished to have the council in their own country. luther formed his resolve at once on the two points required of him. he determined to obey the summons to the diet, and, if there unconvicted of error, to refuse the recantation demanded. the emperor's citation was delivered to him on march by the imperial herald, kaspar sturm, who was to accompany him to worms. within twenty-one days after its receipt, luther was to appear before the emperor; he was due therefore at worms on april , at the latest. up till now he had continued uninterruptedly his arduous and multifarious labours, and, to use his own expression, like nehemiah he carried on at once the work of peace and of war; he built with one hand, and wielded the sword with the other. his controversy with catharinus he brought quickly to a conclusion. during march he finished the first part of his exposition of the gospel as read in church, which he had undertaken, as a peaceful and edifying work, at the request of the elector, to whom he wrote a dedication; and he was now at work on a fervent and tender practical explanation of the _magnificat_, which he had intended for his devoted friend, prince john frederick, the son of duke john and nephew of the elector frederick. he addressed a short letter to him on march , enclosing the first printed sheets of this treatise; and the next day sent him the epilogue, addressed to his friend link, to his reply to catharinus, dedicated also to link. 'i know,' he says here, 'and am certain, that our lord jesus christ still lives and rules. upon this knowledge and assurance i rely, and therefore i will not fear ten thousand popes; for he who is with us is greater than he who is in the world.' on the following day, april , the tuesday after easter, he set out on his way to worms. his friend amsdorf and the pomeranian nobleman peter swaven, who was then studying at wittenberg, accompanied him. he took with him also, according to the rules of the order, a brother of the order, john pezensteiner. the wittenberg magistracy provided carriages and horses. the way led past leipzig, through thuringia from naumburg to eisenach, then southward past berka, hersfeld, grünberg, friedberg, frankfort, and oppenheim. the herald rode on before in his coat of arms, and announced the man whose word had everywhere so mightily stirred the minds of people, and for whose future behaviour and fate friend and foe were alike anxious. everywhere people collected to catch a glimpse of him. on april he was very solemnly received at erfurt. the large majority of the university there were by this time full of enthusiasm for his cause. his friend crotus, on his return from italy, had been chosen rector. the ban of excommunication had not been published by the university, and had been thrown into the water by the students. justus jonas was foremost in zeal; and even erasmus, his honoured friend, had no longer been able to restrain him. lange and others were active in preaching among the people. jonas hastened to weimar to meet luther on his approach. forty members of the university, with the rector at their head, went on horseback, accompanied by a number of others on foot, to welcome him at the boundary of the town. luther had also a small retinue with him. crotus expressed to him the infinite pleasure it was to see him, the great champion of the faith; whereupon luther answered, that he did not deserve such praise, but he thanked them for their love. the poet eoban also stammered out, as he said of himself, a few words; he afterwards described the progress in a set of latin songs. the following day, a sunday, luther spent at erfurt. he preached there, in the church of the augustine convent, a sermon which has been preserved. beginning with the words, of the gospel of the day, 'peace be unto you,' he spoke of the peace which we find through christ the redeemer, by faith in whom and in his work of salvation we are justified, without any works or merit of our own; of the freedom with which christians may act in faith and love; and of the duty of every man, who possessed this peace of god, so to order his work and conduct, that it shall be useful not only to himself but to his neighbour. this he said in protest against the justification by works taught by most preachers, against the system of papal commands, and against the wisdom of heathen teachers, of an aristotle or a plato. of his present personal position and the difficult path he had now to tread, he took no thought, but only of the general obligation he was under, whatever other men might teach; 'i will speak the truth and must speak it; for that reason i am here, and take no money for it.' during the sermon a crash was suddenly heard in the overweighted balconies of the crowded church, the doors of which were blocked with multitudes eager to hear him. the crowd were about to rush out in a panic, when luther exclaimed, 'i know thy wiles, thou satan,' and quieted the congregation with the assurance that no danger threatened, it was only the devil who was carrying on his wicked sport. luther also preached in the augustine convents at gotha and eisenach. at gotha the people thought it significant that after the sermon the devil tore off some stones from the gable of the church. in the inns luther liked to refresh himself with music, and often took up the lute. at eisenach, however, he was seized with an attack of illness, and had to be bled. from frankfort he writes to spalatin, who was then at worms, that he felt since then a degree of suffering and weakness unknown to him before. on the way he found a new imperial edict posted up, which ordered all his books to be seized, as having been condemned by the pope and being contrary to the christian faith. charles v. by this edict had given satisfaction again to the legates, who were annoyed at luther being summoned to worms. many doubted whether luther, after this condemnation of his cause by the emperor, would venture to present himself in person at worms. he himself was alarmed, but travelled on. meanwhile at worms disquietude and suspense prevailed on both sides. hutten from the castle of ebernburg sent threatening and angry letters to the papal legates, who became really anxious lest a blow might be struck from that quarter. aleander complained that sickingen now was king in germany, since he could command a following whenever and as large as he pleased. but in truth he was in no case ready for an attack at that moment. he still reckoned on being able, with his church sympathies, to remain the emperor's friend, and was just now on the point of taking a post of military command in his service. some anxious friends of luther's were afraid that, according to papal law, the safe-conduct would not be observed in the case of a condemned heretic. spalatin himself sent from worms a second warning to luther after he had left frankfort, intimating that he would suffer the fate of huss. meanwhile glapio, on the other side, no doubt with the knowledge and consent of his imperial master, made one more attempt in a very unexpected manner to influence luther, or at least to prevent him from going to worms. he went with the imperial chamberlain, paul von armsdorf, to sickingen and hutten at the castle of ebernburg, spoke of luther as he had formerly done to brück, in an unconstrained and friendly manner, and offered to hold a peaceable interview with luther in sickingen's presence. armsdorf at the same time earnestly dissuaded hutten from his attacks and threats against the legates, and made him the offer of an imperial pension if he would desist. had luther agreed to this proposal and gone to the ebernburg, he could not have reached worms in time; the safe-conduct promised him would have been no longer valid, and the emperor would have been free to act against him. nevertheless sickingen entered into the proposal. the danger threatening luther at worms must have appeared still greater to him, and luther could then have enjoyed the protection of his castle, which he had offered him before. martin butzer, the theologian from schlettstadt, happened then to be with sickingen; he had already met luther at heidelberg in , had then learned to know him, and had embraced his opinions. he was now commissioned to convey this invitation to him at oppenheim, which lay on luther's road. but luther continued on his way. he told butzer that glapio would be able to speak with him at worms. to spalatin he replied, though huss were burnt, yet the truth was not burnt; he would go to worms, though there were as many devils there as there were tiles on the roofs of the houses. on april , at ten o'clock in the morning, luther entered worms. he sat in an open carriage with his three companions from wittenberg, clothed in his monk's habit. he was accompanied by a large number of men on horseback, some of whom, like jonas, had joined him earlier in his journey, others, like some gentlemen belonging to the elector's court, had ridden out from worms to receive him. the imperial herald rode on before. the watchman blew a horn from the tower of the cathedral on seeing the procession approach the gate. thousands streamed hither to see luther. the gentlemen of the court escorted him into the house of the knights of st. john, where he lodged with two counsellors of the elector. as he stepped from his carriage he said, 'god will be with me.' aleander, writing to rome, said that he looked around with the eyes of a demon. crowds of distinguished men, ecclesiastics and laymen, who were anxious to know him personally, flocked daily to see him. on the evening of the following day he had to appear before the diet, which was assembled in the bishop's palace, the residence of the emperor, not far from where luther was lodging. he was conducted thither by side streets, it being impossible to get through the crowds assembled in the main thoroughfare to see him. on his way into the hall where the diet was assembled, tradition tells us how the famous warrior, george von frundsberg, clapped him on the shoulder, and said: 'my poor monk! my poor monk! thou art on thy way to make such a stand as i and many of my knights have never done in our toughest battles. if thou art sure of the justice of thy cause, then forward in the name of god, and be of good courage--god will not forsake thee.' the elector had given luther as his advocate the lawyer jerome schurf, his wittenberg colleague and friend. [illustration: fig. .-luther. (from an engraving by cranach, in .)] when at length, after waiting two hours, luther was admitted to the diet, eck, [footnote: this eck must not be confused with the other john eck, the theologian.] the official of the archbishop of treves, put to him simply, in the name of the emperor, two questions, whether he acknowledged the books (pointing to them on a bench beside him) to be his own, and next, whether he would retract their contents or persist in them. schurf here exclaimed, 'let the titles of the books be named.' eck then read them out. among them there were some merely edifying writings, such as 'a commentary on the lord's prayer,' which had never been made the subject of complaint. luther was not prepared for this proceeding, and possibly the first sight of the august assembly made him nervous. he answered in a low voice, and as if frightened, that the books were his, but that since the question as to their contents concerned the highest of all things, the word of god and the salvation of souls, he must beware of giving a rash answer, and must therefore humbly entreat further time for consideration. after a short deliberation the emperor instructed eck to reply that he would, out of his clemency, grant him a respite till the next day. so luther had again, on april , a thursday, to appear before the diet. again he had to wait two hours, till six o'clock. he stood there in the hall among the dense crowd, talking unconstrained and cheerfully with the ambassador of the diet, peutinger, his patron at augsburg. after he was called in, eck began by reproaching him for having wanted time for consideration. he then put the second question to him in a form more befitting and more conformable with the wishes of the members of the diet: 'wilt thou defend _all_ the books acknowledged by thee to be thine, or recant some part?' luther now answered with firmness and modesty, in a well-considered speech. he divided his works into three classes. in some of them he had set forth simple evangelical truths, professed alike by friend and foe. those he could on no account retract. in others he had attacked corrupt laws and doctrines of the papacy, which no one could deny had miserably vexed and martyred the consciences of christians, and had tyrannically devoured the property of the german nation; if he were to retract these books, he would make himself a cloak for wickedness and tyranny. in the third class of his books he had written against individuals, who endeavoured to shield that tyranny, and to subvert godly doctrine. against these he freely confessed that he had been more violent than was befitting. yet even these writings it was impossible for him to retract, without lending a hand to tyranny and godlessness. but in defence of his books he could only say in the words of the lord jesus christ, 'if i have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou me?' if anyone could do so, let him produce his evidence and confute him from the sacred writings, the old testament and the gospel, and he would be the first to throw his books into the fire. and now, as in the course of his speech he had sounded a new challenge to the papacy, so he concluded by an earnest warning to emperor and empire, lest by endeavouring to promote peace by a condemnation of the divine word, they might; rather bring a dreadful deluge of evils, and thus give an unhappy and inauspicious beginning to the reign of the noble young emperor. he said not these things as if the great personages who heard him stood in any need of his admonitions, but because it was a duty that he owed to his native germany, and he could not neglect to discharge it. luther, like eck, spoke in latin, and then, by desire, repeated his speech with equal firmness in german. schurf, who was standing by his side, declared afterwards with pride, 'how martin had made this answer with such bravery and modest candour, with eyes upraised to heaven, that he and everyone was astonished.' the princes held a short consultation after this harangue. then eck, commissioned by the emperor, sharply reproved him for having spoken impertinently and not really answered the question put to him. he rejected his demand that evidence from scripture might be brought against him, by declaring that his heresies had already been condemned by the church, and in particular by the council of constance, and such judgments must suffice if anything were to be held settled in christianity. he promised him, however, if he would retract the offensive articles, that his other writings should be fairly dealt with, and finally demanded a plain answer 'without horns' to the question, whether he intended to adhere to all he had written, or would retract any part of it. to this luther replied he would give an answer 'with neither horns nor teeth.' unless he were refuted by proofs from scripture, or by evident reason, his conscience bound him to adhere to the word of god which he had quoted in his defence. popes and councils, as was clear, had often erred and contradicted themselves. he could, not, therefore, and he would not, retract anything, for it was neither safe nor honest to act against one's conscience. eck exchanged only a few more words with him in reply to his assertion that councils had erred. 'you cannot prove that, 'said eck. 'i will pledge myself to do it,' was luther's answer. pressed and threatened by his enemy, he concluded with the famous words: 'here i stand, i can do, no otherwise. god help me. amen.' the emperor reluctantly broke up the diet, at about eight o'clock in the evening. darkness had meanwhile come on; the hall was lighted with torches, and the audience were in a state of general excitement and agitation. luther was led out; whereupon an uproar arose among the germans, who thought that he had been taken prisoner. as he stood among the heated crowd, duke erich of brunswick sent him a silver tankard of eimbeck beer, after having first drank of it himself. on reaching his lodging, 'luther,' to use the words of a nüremberger present there, 'stretched out his hands, and with a joyful countenance exclaimed, "i am through! i am through!"' spalatin says: 'he entered the lodging so courageous, comforted and joyful in the lord, that he said before others and myself, "if he had a thousand heads, he would rather have them all cut off than make one recantation.' he relates also how the elector frederick, before his supper, sent for him from luther's dwelling, took him into his room and expressed to him his astonishment, and delight at luther's speech. 'how excellently did, father martin speak both in latin and german before the emperor and the orders. he was bold enough, if not too much so.' the emperor, on the contrary, had been so little impressed by luther's personality, and had understood so little of it, that he fancied the writings ascribed to him must have been written by some one else. many of his spaniards had pursued luther, as he left the diet, with hisses and shouts of scorn. luther, by refusing thus point-blank to retract, effectually destroyed whatever hopes of mediation or reconciliation had been entertained by the milder and more moderate adherents of the church who still wished for reform. nor was any union possible with those who, while looking to a truly representative council as the best safeguard against the tyranny of a pope, were anxious also to obtain at such a council a secure and final settlement of all questions of christian faith and morals. it was these very councils about which eck purposely called on luther for a declaration; and luther's words on this point might well have been considered by the elector as 'too bold.' aleander, who had used such efforts to prevent luther's being heard, was now well satisfied with the result. but luther remained faithful to himself. true it was that he had often formerly spoken of yielding in mere externals, and of the duty of living in love and harmony, and respecting the weaknesses of others; and his conduct during the elaboration of his own church system will show us how well he knew to accommodate himself to the time, and, where perfection was impossible, to be content with what was imperfect. but the question here was not about externals, or whether a given proceeding were judicious or not for the attainment of an object admittedly good. it was a question of confessing or denying the truth--the highest and holiest truths, as he expressed it, relating to god and the salvation of man. in this matter his conscience was bound. and the trial thus offered for his endurance was not yet over. on the morning of the th, the emperor sent word to the estates, that he would now send luther back hi safety to wittenberg, but treat him as a heretic. the majority insisted on attempting further negotiations with him through a committee specially appointed. these were conducted accordingly by the elector of treves, to whom frederick the wise and miltitz had once been anxious to submit luther's affair. the friendliness, and the visible interest in his cause, with which luther now was urged, was more calculated to move him than eck's behaviour at the diet. he himself bore witness afterwards how the archbishop had shown himself more than gracious to him, and would willingly have arranged matters peaceably. instead of being urged simply to retract all his propositions condemned by the pope, or his writings directed against the papacy, he was referred in particular to those articles in which he rejected the decisions of the council of constance. he was desired to submit in confidence to a verdict of the emperor and the empire, when his books should be submitted to judges beyond suspicion. after that he should at least accept the decision of a future council, unfettered by any acknowledgment of the previous sentence of the pope. so freely and independently of the pope did this committee of the german diet, including several bishops and duke george of saxony, proceed in negotiating with a papal heretic. but everything was shipwrecked on luther's firm reservation that the decision must not be contrary to the word of god; and on that question his conscience would not allow him to renounce the right of judging for himself. after two days' negotiations, he thus, on april , according to spalatin, declared himself to the archbishop: 'most gracious lord, i cannot yield; it must happen with me as god wills;' and continued: 'i beg of your grace that you will obtain for me the gracious permission of his imperial majesty that i may go home again, for i have now been here for ten days and nothing yet has been effected.' three hours later the emperor sent word to luther that he might return to the place he came from, and should be given a safe-conduct for twenty-one days, but would not be allowed to preach on the way. free residence, however, and protection at wittenberg, in case luther were condemned by the empire, was more than even frederick the wise would be able to assure him. but he had already laid his plan for the emergency. spalatin refers to it in these words: 'now was my most gracious, lord somewhat disheartened; he was certainly fond of dr. martin, and was also most unwilling to act against the word of god, or to bring upon himself the displeasure of the emperor. accordingly, he devised means how to get dr. martin out of the way for a time, until matters might be quietly settled, and caused luther also to be informed, the evening before he left worms, of his scheme for getting him out of the way. at this dr. martin, out of deference to his elector, was submissively content, though, certainly, then and at all times he would much rather have gone courageously to the attack.' the very next morning, friday the th, luther departed. the imperial herald went behind him, so as not to attract notice. they took the usual road to eisenach. at friedberg luther dismissed the herald, giving him a letter to the emperor and the estates, in which he defended his conduct at worms, and his refusal to trust in the decision of men, by saying that when god's word and things eternal were at stake, one's trust and dependence should be placed, not on one man or many men, but on god alone. at hersfeld, where abbot crato, in spite of the ban, received him with all marks of honour, and again at eisenach, he preached, notwithstanding the emperor's prohibition, not daring to let the word of god be bound. from eisenach, whilst swaven, schurf, and several other of his companions went straight on, he struck southward, together with amsdorf and brother pezensteiner, in order to go and see his relations at möhra. here, after spending the night at the house of his uncle heinz, he preached the next morning, saturday, may . then, accompanied by some of his relations, he took the road through schweina, past the castle of altenstein, and then across the back of the thuringian forest to waltershausen and gotha. towards evening, when near altenstein, he bade leave of his relations. about half an hour farther on, at a spot where the road enters the wooded heights, and ascending between hills along a brook, leads to an old chapel, which even then was in ruins, and has now quite disappeared, armed horsemen attacked the carriage, ordered it to stop with threats and curses, pulled luther out of it, and then hurried him away at full speed. pezensteiner had run away as soon as he saw them approach. amsdorf and the coachman were allowed to pass on; the former was in the secret, and pretended to be terrified, to avoid any suspicion on the part of his companion. the wartburg lay to the north, about eight miles distant, and had been the starting-point of the horsemen, as it now was their goal; but precaution made them ride first in an eastern direction with luther. the coachman afterwards related how luther in the haste of the flight dropped a grey hat he had worn. and now luther 'was given a horse to ride. the night was dark, and about eleven o'clock they arrived at the stately castle, situated above eisenach. here he was to be kept as a knight-prisoner. the secret was kept as strictly as possible towards friend and foe. for many weeks afterwards even frederick's brother john had no idea of it, on the contrary, he wrote to frederick that luther, he had heard, was residing at one of sickingen's castles. among his friends and followers the terrible news had spread, immediately upon his capture, that he had been made away with by his enemies. at worms, however, while the pope was concluding an alliance with charles against france, the papal legate aleander, by commission of the emperor, prepared the edict against luther on the th of may. it was not, however, until the th, after frederick, the elector of the palatinate, and a great part of the other members of the diet had already left, that it was deemed advisable to have it communicated to the rest of the estates; nevertheless it was antedated the th, and issued 'by the unanimous advice of the electors and estates.' it pronounced upon luther, applying the customary strong expressions of papal bulls, the ban and re-ban; no one was to receive him any longer, or feed him &c., but wherever he was found, he was to be seized and handed over to the emperor. part iv. _from the diet of worms to the peasants' war and luther's marriage_. chapter i. luther at the wartburg, to his visit to wittenberg in . luther, after being brought to the fortress, had to live there as a knight-prisoner. he was called squire george, he grew a stately beard, and doffed his monk's cowl for the dress of a knight, with a sword at his side. the governor of the castle, herr von berlepsch, entertained him with all honour, and he was liberally supplied with food and drink. he was free to go about as he pleased in the apartments of the castle, and was permitted, in the company of a trusty servant, to take rides and walks out of doors. thus, as he writes to a friend, he sat up aloft, in the region of the birds, as a curious prisoner, _nolens volens_, whether he willed or no; willing, because god would have it so, not willing, because he would far rather have stood up for the word of god in public, but of such an honour god had not yet found him worthy. [illustration: fig --luther as "squire george." (from a woodcut by cranach.)] care was also taken at once that he should be able to correspond at least by letter with his friends, and especially with those at wittenberg. these letters were sent by messengers of the elector through the hands of spalatin. when luther afterwards heard that a rumour had got abroad as to his place of residence, he sent a letter to spalatin, in which he said: 'a report, so i hear, is spread that luther is staying at the wartburg near eisenach; the people suppose this to be the case, because i was taken prisoner in the wood below; but while they believe that, i sit here safely hidden. if the books that i publish betray me, then i shall change my abode; it is very strange that nobody thinks of bohemia.' this letter, so luther thought, spalatin might let fall into the hands of some of his spying opponents, so as to lead them astray in their conjecture. spalatin made no use of this naive attempt at trickery. he could hardly have done much in the matter, and would probably have directed those who saw through the meaning of the letter straight to the wartburg. he succeeded, however, remarkably well in keeping the spot a secret, even after it was generally guessed and known that luther was to be found somewhere in saxony. as late as , luther's friend agricola remarks that he had hitherto remained concealed, whilst some even sought to hear of him by questioning of the devil; and more than twenty years later luther's opponent cochlaeus declares that he was hidden at alstedt in thuringia. there was no imperial power at that time which might have deemed it necessary or expedient to track out the man who had been condemned by the edict of worms. the emperor had left germany again, and was engaged in a war with france. in his quiet solitude luther threw himself again without delay into the work of his calling, so far as he could here perform it. this was the study of scripture and the active exercise of his own pen in the service of god's word. he had now more time than before to investigate the meaning of the bible in its original languages. 'i sit here,' he writes to spalatin ten days after his arrival, 'the whole day at leisure, and read the greek and hebrew bible.' his sojourn at the castle began in the festival time between easter and whitsuntide. he wrote at once an exposition of the sixty-eighth psalm, with particular reference to the events of ascension and whitsuntide. for the liberation of the laity from the papal yoke, he set at once further to work by composing a treatise 'on confession, whether the pope has power to order it.' he commends confession, when a man humbles himself and, receives forgiveness of god through the lips of a christian brother, but he denounces any compulsion in the matter, and warns men against priests who pervert it into a means of increasing their own power. he now expressed his public thanks to sickingen, and dedicated the book to him--'to the just and firm francis von sickingen, my especial lord and patron.' in this dedication he repeats the fears he had long expressed of the judgment that the clergy would bring upon themselves by their hatred of improvement and their obstinacy. 'i have,' he says, 'often offered peace, i have offered them an answer, i have disputed, but all has been of no avail: i have met with no justice, but only with vain malice and violence, nothing more. i have been simply called on to retract, and threatened with every evil if i refused.' then speaking of the critical moment at which he was obliged to withdraw, 'i can do no more,' he says, 'i am now out of the game. they have now time to change that which cannot, and should not, and will not be tolerated from them any longer. if they refuse to make the change, another will make it for them, without their thanks, one who will not teach like luther with letters and words, but with deeds. thank god, the fear and awe of those rogues at borne is now less than it was.' and again, speaking of roman insolence: 'they push on blindly ahead--there is no listening or reasoning. well, i have seen; more water-bubbles than even theirs, and once such an outrageous smoke that it managed to blot out the sun, but the smoke never lasted, and the sun still shines. i shall continue to keep the truth bright and expose it, and am as far from fearing my ungracious masters as they are ready to despise me.' luther now finished his exposition of the _magnificat_, which, with loving devotion to the subject, he had intended for prince john frederick. he resumed also his work on the sunday gospels and epistles. the first part of it he had already published in latin. but he gave it now a new, and for the christian people of germany, a most important character, by writing in german his comments on these passages of scripture, including those already dealt with in latin, which formed the text of the sermon for the day. thus arose his first collection of sermons, the 'church-postills.' by november he had already sent the first part to the press, though the work progressed but slowly. in a simple exposition of the words of the bible, without any artificial and rhetorical additions or ornament, but with a constant and cheerful regard to practical life, with an unceasing attention to the primary questions of salvation, and in pithy, clear, and thoroughly popular language, he began to lay before his readers the sum total of christian truth, and impress it on their hearts. the work served as much for the instruction and support of other preachers of the gospel now newly proclaimed, as for the direct teaching and edifying of the members of their flocks. it advanced, however, only by degrees, and luther after many years was obliged to have it finished by friends, who collected together printed or written copies of his various sermons. for the special comfort and advice of his wittenberg congregation luther wrote an exposition of the thirty-seventh psalm. nor with less energy and force did he wield his pen during june, in a vigorous and learned polemical reply in latin to the louvain theologian, latomus. and yet luther all this while continued to lament that he had to sit there so idly in his patmos: he would rather be burnt in the service of god's word than stagnate there alone. the bodily rest which took the place of his former unwearied activity in the pulpit and the lecturer's chair, together with the sumptuous fare now substituted for the simple diet of the convent, were no doubt the cause of the physical suffering which for a long time had grievously distressed him and put his patience to the test, and which must have weighed upon his spirits. in his distress he once thought of going to erfurt to consult physicians. some strong remedies, however, which spalatin got for him, gave him temporary relief. he took exercise in the beautiful woods around the castle, and there, as he related afterwards, he used to look for strawberries. in august he had news to give spalatin of a hunt, at which he had been present two days. he wished to look on at 'this bitter-sweet pleasure of heroes.' 'we have,' he says, 'hunted two hares and a few poor little partridges; truly a worthy occupation for idle people!' but among the nets and hounds he managed, as he says, to pursue theology. he saw in it all a picture of the devil, who by cunning and godless doctrines ensnares poor innocent creatures. graver thoughts still were suggested to his mind by the fate of a little hare, which he had helped to save, and had rolled up in the long sleeve of his cloak, but which, on his putting it down afterwards and going away, the dogs caught and killed. 'thus,' he says, 'do the pope and satan rage together, to destroy, despite my efforts, souls already saved.' at that time too he fancied he heard and saw all kinds of devil's noises and sights, which long afterwards he frequently described to his friends, but which he took at the time with great calmness. such, for instance, were a strange continual rumbling in a chest in which he kept hazel nuts, nightly noises of falling on the stairs, and the unaccountable appearance of a black dog in his bed. of the well-known ink-stain at the wartburg we hear nothing either from those or after-times; and a similar spot was shown in the last century at the castle of coburg, where luther stayed in . in the outer world, meanwhile, the great movement that emanated from luther continued to advance and grow, in spite of his disappearance. it was apparent how powerless was his enforced absence to suppress it. soon too it was to be seen how much on the other hand it depended on him that the movement should not bring real danger and destruction. at wittenberg his friends continued labouring faithfully and undisturbed. much as melancthon troubled himself about luther and longed for his return, luther relied with confidence upon him and his efforts, as rendering his own presence unnecessary. with joyful congratulations to his friend he acknowledged his receipt at the wartburg of the sheets of his work--the _loci communes_--wherein melancthon, whilst intending at first only to proclaim the fundamental principles and doctrines of the bible, and especially of the epistle to the romans, actually laid the foundation for the dogma of the evangelical church. just at this time new forces had stepped in to further the work and the battle. shortly before luther's departure to worms, john bugenhagen of pomerania had appeared at wittenberg,--a man only two years younger than luther, well trained in theology and humanistic learning, and already won over to luther's doctrines by his writings, and more especially by his work on the babylonish captivity. he had made friends with luther and melancthon, and soon began to teach with them at the university. john agricola from eisleben had already taken part in the biblical lectures at the university, which was then the chief place for the exposition of evangelical doctrine. this man, born in , had lived at wittenberg since . he had from the first been an adherent of luther, and had won his confidence, as also that of melancthon. he was now their fellow-lecturer at the university, and since the spring of had been appointed by the town as catechist at the parish church, charged with the duty of teaching children religion. wittenberg had also gained the services of the learned justus jonas, so conspicuous for his high culture, and a staunch and open friend of luther. shortly after his journey with luther from erfurt to the diet of worms, he obtained, by grant of the elector, the office of provost to the church of all saints at wittenberg, and became a member also of the theological faculty at the university. the excommunication under which melancthon had fallen with luther did not deter the mass of students from their cause. the academical youth who had assembled here from the whole of germany, and from switzerland, poland, and other countries, were renowned for the exemplary unity in which, unlike their brethren in most of the universities in those days, they lived together and devoted themselves to the purest and most elevating studies. everywhere students might be seen with bibles in their hands; the young nobles and sons of burghers applied themselves diligently to self-discipline; and the drinking-bouts practised elsewhere, and so destructive to the muses, were unknown among them. luther, by his behaviour at worms in particular, had fastened upon himself the eyes of all germany. the proceedings before the diet, made known, as they would be nowadays, by the newspapers, were then published abroad by means of fugitive pamphlets of a longer or shorter kind. luther's speech in particular was circulated from notes made partly by himself, partly by others. day after day, and especially during the sittings of the diet, a number of other short tracts and fly-sheets set forth, mainly in the form of a dialogue, a popular discussion and explanation of his cause. his fate at worms was immediately proclaimed in a book called 'the passion of dr. martin luther,' the title of which sufficiently indicated the analogy suggested. then came the stirring and disquieting news of his sudden kidnapping by the powers of darkness; rumours which only served to stimulate him further in his concealment to speak out and march forwards with undaunted courage and assurance. as writers who now began to labour for the cause in a similar spirit to luther's and in a similarly popular style and manner, we must not omit to name the following. first and foremost was eberlin of günzburg, formerly a franciscan at tübingen; next, the augustine monk michael stifel of esslingen, who came himself to wittenberg and joined there the circle of friends; and lastly, the franciscan henry von kettenbach at ulm. the authors of some other influential works, such as the dialogue 'neu karsthans' (karsthans being a name for peasants), are not known with certainty. in these men and their writings, ideas and thoughts already made their appearance, going beyond the intentions of luther, and into a territory which, from his standpoint of religion, he would rather have seen more exactly defined, and taking up weapons which he had rejected. thus 'karsthans' contains the advice to break off, after the example of the hussites in bohemia, from most of the churches, as being tainted with avarice and superstition; and a rising against the clergy is contemplated, in which the nobles and peasants should combine. eberlin, with his extraordinary energy, not content with the most comprehensive and far-reaching schemes of ecclesiastical reform, plunged into questions affecting the wants of municipal, social, and political life, which luther, in his address to the german nobility, had only briefly alluded to, and had carefully distinguished from his own particular work in hand. to the dealings of the great merchants he showed himself more hostile even than luther; and put forward such proposals as the establishment by the civil authorities of a cheaper tariff of prices for provisions, the appointment to magisterial offices by election, for which peasants also should be qualified, and free rights of hunting and fishing. the edict of worms, intended to proscribe and suppress throughout germany the heretic and his writings, was published in the different states and towns by the princes and magistrates; but the power, and partly also the will, was wanting to enforce its execution. at erfurt, shortly after luther's passage through the town upon his way to worms, the interference of the clergy against a member of a religious institution which had taken part in the ovation accorded to the reformer, gave the first occasion to violent and repeated tumults. students and townspeople attacked upwards of sixty houses of the priests, and demolished them. luther told his friends at once, that he saw in this the work of satan, who sought by this means to bring contempt and legitimate reproach upon the gospel. elsewhere, and above all at wittenberg, his followers busied themselves in his absence with putting into practice what he had defended with his words. calmly and with mature deliberation and courage, luther took part in their labours from the solitude of his watch-tower. he had a very lively and, as he himself confesses, often painful consciousness of his own responsibility, as the one who had put the first match to the great fire, and whose first duties lay with his wittenberg brethren, as their teacher and pastor. shortly after his arrival at the wartburg, he received the news that bartholomew bernhardi of feldkirchen, provost in the little town of kemberg near wittenberg, had publicly, and with the consent of his congregation, taken a wife. he was not the first priest who had ventured to break the unchristian prohibition of marriage by the romish church. but he was the most distinguished of such offenders hitherto, besides being a particular disciple of luther and a man of unimpeachable integrity. luther wrote about it to melancthon, saying: 'i admire the newly married man, who in these stormy times has no fears, and has lost no time about it. may god guide him.' at wittenberg it was now demanded, not without violence, that monasticism should be abolished, and that the mass and the lord's supper should be changed in conformity with the institution of christ. it seemed as if here, in the place of luther, who had gone before with the simple testimony of the word and doctrine, two other men were now to step in as practical and energetic reformers. one of them was luther's old colleague, carlstadt, who had returned in july from a short visit to copenhagen, whither the king of denmark had invited him to promote the new evangelical theology at the university, but had soon again dismissed him, and who now assumed the lead at wittenberg with a passionate and ambitious, but undeterminate zeal. the other was the augustine monk, gabriel zwilling, who had introduced himself to notice as a fiery preacher in the convent church, and in spite of his unattractive appearance and weak voice had drawn together a large congregation from the town and university, and fascinated them with his eloquence. a young silesian wrote home from the university of wittenberg about him, saying: 'god has raised up for us another prophet; many call him a second luther. melancthon is never absent when he preaches.' for the clergy carlstadt sought, by a perverse interpretation of scripture, to make the married state into a law. only married men were to be appointed to offices in the church. for monks and nuns he claimed the liberty of renouncing their cloistered and celibate life, if they found its moral requirements insupportable; but the biblical evidence that he adduced in support of this doctrine was unhappily chosen; and he still declared the renunciation of vows to be a sin, though justified by the avoidance thereby of a still greater sin, that of unchastity in monastic life. luther had required that at the lord's supper the cup, in accordance with the original institution of christ, should be given to the laity. carlstadt and zwilling, however, wished to make it a sin for a person to partake of the communion without the cup being given to the communicants. other changes also were now demanded in the mode of administering the elements, conformably with the holy supper held by jesus himself with his twelve disciples. zwilling would have twelve communicants at a time partake of the bread and wine. it was further insisted that, like as at ordinary meals, the elements should be given into the hand of each individual to partake of, and not put into his mouth by the priest. the sacrifice of the mass zwilling would abolish altogether, but carlstadt thought it necessary, in dealing with so important a feature of the old form of worship, to proceed with caution. upon these questions and proceedings luther expressed his opinion early in august to melancthon, who was keenly excited about them, but on many points was unsettled in his mind. the project of restoring at wittenberg the celebration of the lord's supper, as originally instituted, with the cup, met with luther's full approval; for the tyranny which the christian congregations had hitherto endured in this respect had been acknowledged there, and there was a general wish to resist it. he declared further, with regard to private masses, that he was resolved never to say any more while he lived. but compulsion he would not dream of: if any who still suffered from this tyranny partook of the communion without the cup, no man durst account it to him as a sin. as for the troubles of the monks and nuns, under their self-imposed vows, his sympathy for them was no less acute than that of his friends at wittenberg, but the arguments by which they sought to help them to liberty he did not consider sound. he gave now this subject a more searching and deeper consideration, and shortly addressed a series of theses on celibacy to the bishops and deacons of the church at wittenberg. he attacked vows in general, and assailed them at the very root. inasmuch, moreover, as the vows of chastity, he said, and of other monastic observances were commonly made to god with the intent and purpose of working out one's own salvation by one's own works and righteousness, these were not vows in accordance with the will of god, but denials of the faith. and even though a man should have made a vow in a spirit of piety, he placed himself at all events, by his own will and act, under a restraint and yoke at variance with the gospel and the liberty which faith in christ bestows. luther went still farther, and declared that the chastity enjoined upon the monk was only possible if he possessed the special gift of continence spoken of by st. paul. how dare a man make a vow to god, which god must first endue him with the power to keep? a man, therefore, in vowing chastity, makes a vow which it is not really possible for him to keep, whilst true chastity is made possible for him by god in the married life which he condemns. these vows, accordingly, are radically vicious and displeasing to god, and cease to be binding on a christian who has been made free in faith, and has recognised the true will of god. personally concerned as luther was, as an augustine monk himself, in these questions which he discussed, he treated the liberty, which inwardly he knew himself to possess, as quietly and coolly as possible. on receiving the news from wittenberg, he wrote to spalatin, 'good heaven! our wittenbergers will allow even the monks to have wives, but they shall not force me to take one.' and he asks melancthon jokingly, if he was going to revenge himself upon him for having helped him to get a wife; he would know well enough how to guard against that. at wittenberg there was great excitement, particularly on account of the mass. in the augustinian convent there, the majority of the monks held with zwilling; they wished to celebrate the sacrament of the lord's supper in strict accordance with the institution of christ. their prior, conrad held, took the opposite side, and adhered to the ancient usage. justus jonas, the provost, expressed his views with equal ardour in the convent church attached to the university, and met with violent opposition from other members of the foundation. a committee, composed of deputies from the university and chapter of canons, from whom the elector in october demanded a formal opinion on the subject, expressed by their majority the same view, and requested the elector himself to abolish the abuse of the mass. but frederick utterly rejected the idea of decreeing on his own authority innovations which would constitute a deviation from the great christian catholic church, more especially as opinions were not agreed on them even at wittenberg. he would do no more than give free scope and protection to the new testimony of biblical truth, until it should be properly sifted by the church. in the church of the augustinian convent, the mass and the lord's supper were now both suspended. men set to work now in earnest to give effect to the new principles applied to monachism. thirteen augustine monks, about a third of the then inmates of the convent at wittenberg, quitted that convent early in november, and cast away their cowls. some of them took up at once a civil trade or handicraft. this step increased the growing feeling of hostility to the monks among the students and inhabitants of the town. all kinds of enormities ensued: monks were mocked at in the streets; the convents were threatened; and even the service of the mass was disturbed by rioters who forced their way into the parish church. meanwhile luther went on, in the quietness of his seclusion, to teach the christian truth about vows and masses, to explain and establish his newly-acquired knowledge and convictions, and to prepare by that means the way of ultimate reform. he composed a tract, in latin and german, 'on the abuse of masses,' and another, in latin, 'on monastic vows.' the latter he dedicated to his father, taking note of his protest against his entering the convent, and telling him with joy that he was now a free man, a monk, and yet no longer a monk. as for his brethren's desertion of the convent, however, he disapproved the manner of it. they could, and should, have parted in peace and amity, not as they did, in a tumult. these two works he completed in november, and sent them to spalatin, to have them printed at wittenberg. in this manner luther occupied himself from the summer to the winter, continuing all the while his biblical studies and the composition of his church-postills. but he was also preparing to deal a heavy blow at the cardinal albert. this prelate had abstained as yet, with great caution, from taking any stringent measures to prevent the spread of lutheran preaching in his diocese. but he was in want of money. to supply this want, he published a work, giving news of a precious relic, which he had placed for view at halle, his town, and inviting pilgrimages to see it. a multitude of other rich and wondrous relics had been collected there; not only heaps of bones and entire corpses of saints, with a portion of the body of the patriarch isaac, but also pieces of the manna, as it had fallen from heaven in the desert, little bits of the burning bush of moses, jars from the wedding at cana, and some of the wine into which jesus there had changed the water, thorns from the saviour's crown, one of the stones with which stephen was stoned, and a multitude of other, in all nearly , , relics. whoever should attend with devotion at the exhibition of these sacred treasures in the collegiate church at halle, and should give a pious alms to the institution, was to receive a 'surpassing' indulgence. the first exhibition of this kind took place about the beginning of september. albert also had not scrupled to cause one of the priests who wished to marry to be imprisoned, though it was notorious how he himself made up for his celibacy by his loose living. luther now, as he wrote to spalatin on october , , could not restrain himself any longer from breaking out, in private and in public, against his 'idol of indulgences' and his scandalous whoredoms. he took no thought of the fact that his own pious elector, only a few years before, had arranged a similar, though less showy exhibition of relics at the convent church at wittenberg, and was thus indirectly assailed by reproaches now no longer deserved. by the end of the month luther had a pamphlet ready for publication. but an attack of such a kind on a magnate like albert, the great prince of the empire, elector of mayence, and brother of the elector of brandenburg, was not to frederick's taste, and he informed luther, through spalatin that he forbade it. he would not sanction anything, he said, which might disturb the public peace. luther told spalatin, in his reply, that he had never read a more disagreeable letter than frederick's. 'i will not put up with it,' he indignantly broke out; 'i will rather lose you and the prince himself, and every living being. if i have stood up against the pope, why should i yield to his creature?' he wished only to show his pamphlet first to melancthon, and submit a few alterations in it to the judgment of his friend. for this purpose he sent it to spalatin, requesting him to forward it. then, on december , he wrote a letter to albert himself. its tone and contents indicate pretty plainly what the pamphlet itself contained. in clear vigorous german, and without any circumlocution, he submits to the cardinal his 'humble request,' to abstain from corrupting the poor people, and not to show himself a wolf in bishop's clothing. he must surely know by this time that indulgences were sheer knavery and trickery. he was not to imagine that luther was dead: luther would trust cheerfully in god, and carry on a game with the cardinal of mayence, of which not many people were yet aware. as for the priests who had wished to marry, he warned the archbishop that a cry would be raised from the gospel about it; and the bishops would learn that they had better first pluck out the beam from their own eyes, and drive their own mistresses away. luther concluded by giving him fourteen days for a 'proper' answer; otherwise, when that time expired, he would immediately publish his pamphlet on 'the idol at halle.' all this while, the news from wittenberg kept luther in a state of constant anxiety. the distance and the difficulty of correspondence had become quite insupportable. a few days after his letter of december , he suddenly re-appeared there among his friends. in secret, and accompanied only by a servant, he had gone thither on horseback in his knight's dress. he stayed there for three days with amsdorf. only his most intimate friends were allowed to know of his arrival. his meeting with them again gave him, as he wrote to spalatin, the keenest pleasure and enjoyment. but it was a bitter sorrow to hear that spalatin would not look at, or listen to, his pamphlet against albert, nor his tracts on masses and monastic vows, but had kept them back. what his friends now told him of their efforts and labours he approved of, and he wished them strength from above to persevere. but he had heard already, when on his way, of fresh outrages committed by some of the townspeople and students against the priests and monks, and henceforth he deemed it his nearest duty to warn them publicly against such acts of violence and disorder. chapter ii. luther's further sojourn at the wartburg, and his return to wittenberg, . in secret, as he had first gone there, luther returned to the wartburg, and now set to work with his 'true admonition for all christians to abstain from turbulence and rebellion.' he had before his eyes the danger of an insurrection, involving the lives of all the priests and monks who opposed reform, and one in which the common people, in revenge for their many grievances, might fall to laying about them with clubs and flails, as the 'karsthans' threatened. to the princes, magistrates, and nobles, he had already addressed a demand to put a stop to the corruption of the church and the tyranny of the pope. of the civil authorities and the nobility, he says now that 'they ought to do this, in duty to their ordinary position and power, every prince and lord on his own territory; for what is brought about by the exercise of ordinary power is not to be accounted turbulence.' at the same time, to the masses and to individuals he plainly prohibits a rising by force. turbulence was the usurpation of justice, and revenge, which god would not suffer, for he said, 'revenge is mine.' all turbulence, he said, was wrong, however good might be the cause, and only made bad worse. as for the magistrates, he would not have them kill the priests, as once moses and elias had done to the worshippers of idols; they were simply to forbid them from acting contrary to the gospel. words would do more than was enough with them, so there was no need of hewing and stabbing. we have seen how emphatically luther expressed himself to the same effect before he went to worms. the apostle's words that the lord should consume the antichrist with the spirit of his mouth, were to be fulfilled, according to luther, in the words of gospel preaching. it was his own previous experience that had taught him to rely with such lofty confidence on the simple word; he had done more injury with it alone to the pope, and the priests and monks, than all the emperors and princes had ever done with all their power. he still looked forward steadfastly to the approach of the last day, when christ by his coming should utterly destroy the pope, whose iniquity the word had exposed. as he had done formerly in his treatise on christian liberty, and had now good reason to do with the wittenbergers, he exhorts men to a loving and merciful regard to their weaker brethren, whose consciences were still ensnared by the old ordinances respecting fasting and masses. they ought not to be taken unawares, but instructed kindly and, if unable to agree at once, dealt with patiently. 'the wolves,' he says, 'cannot be treated too severely, nor the tender sheep too gently.' luther's works on the mass and monastic vows were now actually in print. cardinal albert, however, gave the answer demanded by luther, in a short letter of december . he assured him that the subject of his complaint had been removed; that as to himself, he did not deny that he was a miserable sinner, the very filth of the earth, as bad as anyone. christian chastisement he could well endure; he looked to god for grace and strength, to live according to his will. so abjectly did this magnate quail before the word, with which luther threatened to expose his doings. he must no doubt have been ashamed of his traffic in indulgences before all his humanist friends, and especially erasmus; and must have expected that the other scandals with which luther charged him would be laid bare without mercy or regard. at the same time we see in all this, how perfectly free from reproach in this matter of morality must luther have been, not only in his own conscience, but also in the eyes of albert. luther, on receiving this letter, doubted indeed the sincerity of its professions, and even abstained from acknowledging it. but he now finally abandoned, nevertheless, the publication of the pamphlet, intended to expose him, which had hitherto been hindered by the elector. but the most important task that luther now undertook, and in which he persevered with steadfast devotion during his further stay at the wartburg, was one of a peaceful character, the most beautiful fruit of his seclusion, the noblest gift that he has bequeathed to his countrymen. this was his translation of the bible--first of the new testament. 'our brethren demand it of me,' he wrote to lange shortly after his return from wittenberg. and in these words the wish was evidently expressed, or else laid to heart anew. the bible, it is true, had been translated into german before luther's time, but in a clumsy idiom that sounded foreign to the people, and not, like luther's version, from the original text, but from the latin translation used in the churches. luther declared that no one could speak german of this outlandish kind, 'but,' he said, 'one has to ask the mother in her home, the children in the street, the common man in the market-place, and look at their mouths to see how they speak, and thence interpret it to oneself, and so make them understand. i have often laboured to do this, but have not always succeeded or hit the meaning.' none the less strictly and faithfully did he seek to adhere to the spirit of the text, and, where necessary, even to the letter. such an interpretation, he said, required a 'truly devout, faithful, diligent, fearful, christian, learned, experienced, and practised heart.' penetrated himself with the substance and spirit of the scriptures, he understood how to combine in his language, as if by intuition, a dignified tone and a national character. so hard did he work, that he finished the new testament at the wartburg in a few months; he then wished to revise it with the help of melancthon. meanwhile, affairs at wittenberg were assuming so serious an aspect as to make luther's apprehensions increase from day to day. the question of monastic vows indeed was settled peaceably, and in a manner such as luther would have desired, by some resolutions (so far as resolutions could settle it), passed by the augustinian brethren at a chapter held at wittenberg by link, the vicar of the order. it was there resolved that free permission should be given to leave the convent, but that those who preferred to adhere to the monastic life should remain there in voluntary but strict subordination to their superiors and to the established rules; some of them should be employed in preaching the word of god, others should contribute by manual labour to the support of the institution. outside, however, among the people of wittenberg, carlstadt, who had shortly before restrained even his own partisans in regard to the question of the mass, and who was neither a regular preacher in the town nor in the possession of any other office, now pressed forward, by his sermons and writings, impetuously in the van, and made hasty strides towards the furtherance of his misty projects of reform. anticipating a prohibition from the elector, he celebrated the lord's supper at christmas in the new manner. even the usual vestments were discarded as idolatrous: zwilling performed the service in a student's gown. the people were enjoined to eat meat and eggs on fast days; and confession was no longer held before the communion. carlstadt went further, and denounced the pictures and images in the churches; it was not enough to desist from worshipping them, nor durst it be hinted that they served as books for the instruction of laymen. god had plainly forbidden them; their proper place was in the fire and not in god's house. whilst the town-council, at his instance, resolved to have the images removed from the parish church, some of the populace stormed in, tore them down, hewed them to pieces, and burned them. luther himself, even with regard to rites and ordinances which he rejected altogether, always counselled moderation and patience towards the weak. he could not believe that the great body of his wittenberg congregation were already ripe for such changes, or that many conscientious but weaker brethren among them were not in need of tender consideration. people might say that it was only a question of time; well, he did not wish to delay genuine reform for ever, merely to humour the minority. but it was precisely that those members should have proper time allowed them, and every means taken for their instruction and edification, that was to luther a matter of conscience. external matters, of which the other reformers made so much, such as eating on fast days, the taking with one's own hands the bread and wine at the communion, and so forth, he regarded as trifles, the performance or non-performance of which in no way affected the true liberty of the faithful, while grievous wrong was done to the souls of the weaker brethren, if they were compelled to do anything therein against their consciences. 'by acting thus,' he says, 'you have made many consciences miserable; if they had to give an account on their death-beds, or when troubled with temptation, they would not for the life of them know why or how they had offended.' nay, he accuses a man of corrupting souls, who 'plunges' them carelessly into practices that offend their consciences. 'you wish,' he says, 'to serve god, and you don't know that you are the forerunners of the devil. he has begun by attempting to dishonour the word; he has set you to work at that bit of folly, so that meanwhile you may forget faith and love.' thus luther wrote in a work intended for the wittenbergers. even the innovations with regard to pictures and images he numbers among the 'trivial matters which are not worth the sacrifice of faith and love.' those which represented truly christian subjects he would preserve at all times, and he valued them highly. these wittenberg reformers, however, with all their desire to assert the higher spiritual character of evangelical christianity, still remained devotees, in their peculiar 'spirit,' to the externals of worship and, in regard to images, to the letter of the old testament law. and yet their conception of the christian spirit and of christian revelation produced results of another and still stranger kind. not only did they repudiate all titles and dignities conferred by the university, on the plea that, in the words of christ, no man durst call himself rabbi or master, but carlstadt and zwilling now openly expressed their contempt of all human theology and biblical learning. god, they said, has hid these things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them unto babes; the spirit from above must enlighten a man. carlstadt went to simple burghers in their houses, to have passages in the bible explained to him. he and zwilling won over to their side the master of the boys' school in the town, and the school was broken up. a new municipal constitution, supported by the magistracy, made strange inroads on the rights of the citizens and the domain of social life; a common chest, containing the revenues of the church, was utilised for advancing money without interest to needy handicraftsmen, and making loans to other townsmen at a low rate of interest. meantime the spiritual wants of the community were neglected, and in the hospitals and prisons entirely overlooked. such was the direction here taken by the reform for which luther's preaching had prepared the way. and just at this time, at christmas, three fanatics came to wittenberg from zwickau, with the object of taking part in the movement and furthering the work of god. these were nicholas storch, a weaver, mark stübner, a former student at wittenberg, and another weaver, who were now zealously joined by the theologian martin cellarius. they boasted of a direct revelation from god, of prophetic visions, dreams, and familiar conversations with the deity. compared with these pretensions, scripture was a thing of small importance in their eyes. they rejected infant baptism, as incapable of imparting the spirit. for communion and intercourse with god they looked not to faith, which, as luther taught, accepts submissively what the word of god reveals to the conscience and the heart, but to a mystic process of self-abstraction from everything external, sensual, and finite, until the soul becomes immovably centred in the one divine being. this spirit, seemingly so elevated and pure, broke out nevertheless into fanaticism of the wildest kind, by proclaiming and demanding a general revolution, in which all the priests were to be killed, all godless men destroyed, and the kingdom of god established. these fanatical displays had begun at zwickau, no doubt under bohemian influence, and were characterised by the ravings common to the middle ages. thomas münzer, from stolberg in the harz country, who was a preacher at one of the churches, took the lead; and he was certainly the most important and most dangerous personage among them. he accounted the civil authorities, with their rights, no more as christians than he did the clergy and the hierarchy; and began already to prate of universal equality and communism. this novel and exciting doctrine soon won adherents, and propagated the 'spirit of revelation.' already disturbances were brewing. but the magistrates took vigorous and timely measures. storch, stübner, and cellarius fled to wittenberg, while münzer roamed about elsewhere in germany. carlstadt went on with his innovations without allying himself outwardly with these refugees. but the connection of his aims with theirs could not be mistaken, and as time went on, became more and more apparent. melancthon, with all his refinement and purity of soul, had not sufficient energy and independence to bridle the passions and forces that had been aroused by carlstadt. the zwickau prophets, with their visions and revelations, haunted him; he seemed incapable of forming any settled or sober judgment on this strange and sudden phenomenon. luther, on the contrary, received the news with calmness and composure. he marvelled at the anxiety of his friend, who in intellect and learning was his superior. he found no difficulty in testing these enthusiasts by the standard of the new testament. there was nothing, he said, in their words and acts, so far as he had heard anything of them, which the devil might not do or mimic. as for their so-called ecstasies of devotion, there was nothing in all that, even though they boasted of being rapt into the third heaven. the majesty of god was not wont to hold such familiar converse with men in old time. the creature must first perish before his creator, as before a consuming fire: when god speaks, he must feel the meaning of the words of isaiah, 'as a lion, so will he break all my bones.' and yet luther would not have them imprisoned or dealt with by violence; they could be disposed of without bloodshed and the sword, and be laughed out of their folly. but his cares for his wittenberg congregation and the trouble which carlstadt's doings there were giving him, left him no peace. he could not justify those acts before god and the world: they lay upon his own shoulders, and above all, they brought discredit on the gospel. in january he went back to wittenberg. he was entreated to do so by the magistrates. in vain did the elector attempt to detain him, and so prevent his risking an appearance in public. moreover, the council of regency at nüremberg, which represented the emperor in his absence, had just demanded of frederick a strict suppression of the innovations at wittenberg. luther quitted the wartburg, without leave, on march . about his journey thence we only know that he passed through jena and the town of borna, lying south of leipzig. a young swiss, john kessler from st. gallen, who was then on his way with a companion to the university at wittenberg, has left us an interesting account of their meeting with luther at the inn of the 'black bear,' just outside jena. they found there a solitary horseman sitting at the table, 'dressed after the fashion of the country in a red _schlepli_ (or slouched hat), plain hose and doublet--he had thrown aside his tabard--with a sword at his side, his right hand resting on the pommel, and the other grasping the hilt.' before him lay a little book. he invited them in a friendly manner, bashful as they were, to take a seat by him, and spoke to them about the wittenberg studies, about melancthon and other men of learning, and as to what people thought of luther in switzerland. discoursing thus, he made them feel so much at ease, that kessler's companion took up the little book lying before him, and opened it: it was a hebrew psalter. at supper, where they were joined by two merchants, he paid for kessler and his friend, and fascinated them all by his 'agreeable and godly discourse.' afterwards he drank with his young friends 'one more friendly glass for a blessing,' gave them his hand at parting, and charged them to greet the jurist schurf at wittenberg, who was a fellow-countryman of theirs by birth, with the words 'he who is coming, salutes you.' the host had recognised luther, and told his guests who he was. early next morning the merchants found him in the stable: he mounted his horse, and rode forward on his way. at borna, where he lodged with an official of the elector, he wrote in haste a long answer to the warning instructions of his prince, conveyed to him by the governor of eisenach on the eve of his departure. he did not seek to excuse himself, or to beg forgiveness, but to quiet his 'most gracious highness,' and confirm him in the faith. he had never spoken with greater certainty about what he had to do, nor with a calmer and more joyful, bold, and proud assurance, in view of what lay before him, than now, when he had to encounter, on two contrary sides, opposition and danger. in his resolve and his hopes he threw himself entirely on his god. 'i go to wittenberg,' he writes to frederick, 'under a far higher protection than yours. nay, i hold that i can offer your highness more protection than your highness can offer me.... god alone must be the worker here, without any human care or help; therefore, he who has the most faith will be able to give the most protection.' to the question what the elector should do in his cause, he answered, 'nothing at all.' the elector must allow the imperial authorities to exercise their powers in his territory without let or hindrance, even if they chose to seize him or put him to death. the elector would surely not be called on to be his executioner. should he leave the door open and give safe-conduct to those who sought to capture him, he would have done his duty quite enough. luther rode on undaunted, even through the territory of duke george, who was now violently exasperated with him and the people of wittenberg; and on the evening of march he reached his destination and his friends, safe in body and happy in his mind. on the morning of the following saturday, kessler and his companion, on visiting schurf, found luther sitting at his house with melancthon, jonas, and amsdorf, and telling them about his doings. kessler thus describes his appearance. 'when i saw martin in , he was somewhat stout, but upright, bending backwards rather than stooping; with a face upturned to heaven; with deep, dark eyes and eyebrows, twinkling and sparkling like stars, so that one could hardly look steadily at them.' chapter iii. luther's re-appearance and fresh labours at wittenbebg, . it was on a thursday that luther arrived again at wittenberg. the very next sunday he re-appeared in his old pulpit among his town congregation. in clear, simple, earnest, and scriptural language he endeavoured to explain to them their errors, and to lead them again into the right way. for eight successive days he preached in this manner. the truths and principles he propounded were the same that he uttered from the wartburg, and, indeed, ever since his career of reformation began. above all things he exhorted them to charity, and to deal with their faithful fellow-christians as god had dealt with them in his love, whereof through faith they were partakers. 'in this, dear friends,' he said, 'you are almost entirely wanting, and not a trace of charity can i see in you, but perceive rather that you have not been thankful to god. i see, indeed, that you can discourse well enough on the doctrines of faith and love which have been preached to you, and no wonder: cannot even a donkey sing his lesson? and should you not then speak and teach the doctrine or the little word? but the kingdom of god does not consist in talk or words, but in deeds, in works and practice.' he taught them to distinguish between what was obligatory and what was free, between what was to be observed or what was not. charity must be practised, he said, even in essentials, since no man must compel his brother by force, but must let the word operate on the hearts of the weak and erring, and pray for them. whatever is free must be left free, so as not to cause vexation to the weak; but against unchristian tyrants a stand must be made for freedom. thus, with the sheer power and fervour of his eloquence, luther prevailed with his congregation, and soon had the conduct of the church movement again in his hands. zwilling allowed himself to be reproved. carlstadt shrank back silently, though sullenly; luther earnestly begged him not to publish anything hostile and thus compel him to a battle. in his sermons he refrained from all personal references. of the recent innovations, only one was retained, the omission from the mass of the words relating to the sacrifice of the body of christ by the priests. luther considered them downright objectionable and unchristian; and important as they were in themselves, they were scarcely noticed by the weak and simple, being uttered in latin, and in a low voice. the sacrament was again administered to the majority in one kind; and only those who expressly desired it could receive it with the lay-cup at an altar set aside for the purpose. the latter form of celebration, however, soon became the general custom, to the exclusion of the former. as regards the vestments to be worn during service, the taking the elements into one's own hand, and such-like matters, luther maintained that they were too trifling to make a fuss about, or to be allowed to be a stumbling-block to the weak adherents of the old system. luther himself returned to live at the convent, resumed his cowl, and observed again the customary ordinance of fasting. it was only after two years, when his frock was quite worn out, and he had a new suit made of some good cloth which the elector had given him, that he laid aside altogether his monk's dress. the prophets of zwickau were away from wittenberg at the moment when luther returned there. a few weeks after stübner and cellarius appeared before luther. their real character and spirit were now fully shown him by the arrogance and violence with which they demanded belief in their superior authority, and by their outburst of rage when he ventured to contradict them. he writes thus to spalatin: 'i have caught them even in open lying; when they tried to evade me with miserable smooth words, i at last bade them prove their teaching by miracles, of which they boasted against the scriptures. this they refused, but threatened that i should have to believe them some day. thereupon i told them that their god could work no miracle against the will of my god. thus we separated.' they then left the town for ever, without having gained any ground there. thus luther, who was accused by his enemies of subverting all ordinances of the church, began his practical labours of reform by checking, through the firmness and clearness of his principles, the violence of others, and concentrating all his thoughts on the spiritual welfare of his congregation. the preacher of free and saving faith was the foremost to insist, in the practical conduct of the church, upon the active exercise of brotherly love in the service of true freedom. the great man of the people opposed himself, regardless of popular favour or dislike, to the current which had now become national. under the influence of his preaching the elector could now quietly allow matters in wittenberg and the neighbourhood to shape their further course in quiet. nevertheless, he permitted the neighbouring bishops to work against the new doctrines by visitations in his country; he only denied them the assistance of magisterial compulsion and temporal penalties. the truth should make its own way. luther, immediately on his return to wittenberg, was impatient to explain in full to german christendom his position, without the restraints imposed on his words during his residence at the wartburg. this he did in a letter to the knight hartmuth von kronberg, near frankfort-on-the-main, which he intended for publication. the latter, son-in-law to sickingen, a man of upright, honourable, christian character, had published a couple of little tracts in luther's spirit. luther, by his letter wished to 'visit him in spirit and make known to him his joy.' he took the opportunity, at the same time, of speaking his mind plainly, both about the contest he had to wage at wittenberg, and the hostility to the gospel displayed by romanists in germany. but harder yet for the faith than the snares of such enemies, appeared to him 'the cunning game' devised by satan at wittenberg, to bring reproach upon the gospel. 'not all my enemies,' he said, 'have hit me as i now am hit by our people, and i must confess that the smoke makes my eyes smart and almost tickles my heart. "hereby," thought the evil one, "i will take the heart out of luther and weary the tough spirit; this attack he will neither understand nor conquer!"' fearlessly also, and in a manner which would have been impossible to him at the wartburg, he spoke out against the grievous 'sin at worms, when the truth of god was so childishly despised, so publicly, defiantly, wilfully condemned;' it was a sin of the whole german nation, because the heads had done this, and no one at the godless diet had opposed them. he reproached himself with having, in order to please good friends there, and not to appear too obstinate, smothered his feelings and not spoken out his belief with more vigour and decision before the tyrants, however much the unbelieving heathens might have abused him for answering haughtily. of one of his 'miserable enemies' he says: 'the chief one is the water-bladder n., who defies heaven with his high stomach, and has renounced the gospel. he would like to devour christ, as the wolf does a gnat.' this was an unmistakable allusion to duke george, who, in his bigoted devotion to the church, was especially excited by the dangerous influences which threatened his country from the neighbouring wittenberg, and who shortly before had made violent complaints on that account to the elector frederick. indeed, in a copy of this letter, he was mentioned by name. duke george afterwards demanded satisfaction, but the matter was prolonged without any result. luther informs hartmuth of his return to wittenberg, but adds that he does not know how long he will remain there. he announces to him the portion of his postills which had just been published, and states that he had made up his mind to translate the bible into german. this, he said, was necessary for him, for it would show him his mistake in fancying he was a learned man. luther now threw himself into his work in all its branches. he resumed his academical lectures as well as the regular preaching in the town church, and he also preached on week days on the different books of the bible. these sermons he continued when, in the following year, after the death of the old pastor heins, for whom he had hitherto acted as deputy, his friend bugenhagen was appointed to the living. he and bugenhagen remained from now until the latter died, united by personal friendship and common theological views, and laboured faithfully together in the service of their parochial congregation. bugenhagen, as town pastor, appears as one of the most prominent figures in the history of wittenberg at this time. luther assisted him and his congregation with unselfish affection and friendship, and in turn made confidential use of his services as pastor and father-confessor. [illustration: fig. .--bugenuagen. from a picture by cranach in his album, (at berlin,) .] during the busy times of lent and easter, , luther had again undertaken duty among the wittenberg congregation, and immediately after easter he visited borna, altenburg, zwickau, and eilenburg, where the people were longing to hear his preaching, and where he exerted himself to have an evangelical preacher appointed. his eyes indeed were chiefly fixed on zwickau, where he was resolved to counteract finally by his words the consequences of the recent infatuation. according to a report, made by a state official, , people assembled to hear luther, who preached from a balcony of the town-hall to the multitude gathered below. at borna he preached immediately before a visitation held there by the bishop of merseburg, and again on the day after it. during the following autumn he also preached several times at weimar, whither he had been invited by john, the brother of the elector frederick; and likewise before the congregation at erfurt, to whom during the summer he had addressed an instructive exhortation in writing on the subject of the innovations. even at wittenberg his literary labours, as we have seen from his letter to kronberg, were still mainly devoted to the bible. in concert with melancthon, and with the assistance of other friends, he set about a revision of his translation of the new testament. he sent the first sheets when printed to spalatin, on may , as a 'foretaste of our new bible.' with the aid of three presses the printing progressed so rapidly, that already in september the work was ready for publication. september , dedicated to st. matthew, is distinguished as the birthday of the german new testament. in december already a second edition was called for, though the price of the book, a florin and a half, was a high one at that time. the work was greedily and thankfully pounced upon by many thousands in all parts of germany, who had learnt from luther to distinguish the 'pure word of god' from the dogmas of the church, and to honour it accordingly. nor could any means more powerful than this be found of spreading the doctrine thus founded on the word of god, and making it the real property of hearers and readers. all the greater was the danger recognised herein by those who adhered to ecclesiastical authority and traditions. of great significance for both sides are the words of one of the most violent of luther's contemporary opponents, the theologian cochlaeus: 'luther's new testament was multiplied by the printers in a most wonderful degree, so that even shoemakers and women, and every and any lay person acquainted with the german type, read it greedily as the fountain of all truth, and by repeatedly, reading it, impressed it on their memory. by this means they acquired in a few months so much knowledge, that they ventured to dispute, not only with catholic laymen, but even with masters and doctors of theology, about faith and the gospel. luther himself, indeed, had long before taught that even christian women, and everyone who had been baptized, were in truth priests, as much as pope, bishop, and priests. the crowd of lutherans gave themselves far more trouble in learning the translation of the bible than did the catholics, where the laity left such matters chiefly to the priests and monks.' the catholic authorities immediately issued orders forbidding the book, and directing it to be delivered up and confiscated. they hastened also to accuse the translation of a number of pretended errors and falsifications, which were mostly corrections of passages mistranslated in the established latin version from the words of the original greek text. cochlaeus brought one particular charge against luther's translation, that he had ventured to alter the beginning of the lord's prayer in contradiction to the universal, including the german church, and likewise to the original text, by substituting 'unser vater in dem himmel' for 'vater unser, der du bist im himmel.' ('our father in heaven,' for 'our father which art in heaven'). when, some years later, emser published a rival translation of the new testament, it was found to be in great part a transcript of luther's, with only a few corrections according to the old latin. whilst the new testament was still in the press, luther set zealously to work on the old. here he encountered more difficulties, on account of the language; but he had long been studying hebrew with devotion and zeal, and moreover he could now get the assistance of his new colleague, aurogallus, who was especially famous for teaching hebrew. before christmas the five books of moses were ready for press; these were to be published by themselves. in they were followed by two other parts, containing the biblical books (according to the present german order) up to the song of solomon. his translation of the prophets, interrupted by other work, was delayed for several years. nor was luther's sharp pen long idle against rome, as indeed might have been anticipated from his letter to kronberg. he found his chief occasion for attack in a series of new edicts and other measures of the german bishops against the innovations--the abolition of clerical celibacy, the transgression of the laws of fasting, and so on. for this purpose ecclesiastical visitations were undertaken by the bishops of meissen and merseburg, such as have already been alluded to when luther went to zwickau. luther's sermons against the abuse of christian liberty were followed by a small tract entitled 'on the necessity of avoiding human doctrine.' he did not mean it, as he said, for those 'bold, intemperate heads;' but he wished to preach christian liberty to the poor, humble consciences, enslaved by monkish vows and ordinances, that they might be instructed how, by god's help and without danger, to escape and to use their liberty discreetly. against the existing romish episcopacy he declared war to the knife in a treatise 'against the order, falsely called spiritual, of pope and bishops.' he who had been robbed of his title of priest and doctor by the displeasure of pope and emperor, and from whom, by papal bulls, the 'mark of the beast' (rev. xiii. ) was washed off, confronts the 'popish bishops' now, as 'by god's grace, preacher at wittenberg.' luther's further writings against the romish churchdom and dogma do not possess the same interest for us as his earlier ones, inasmuch as they no longer show the progress and development of his own views on the church. in the violent language he now employs he vents his chief anger in complaining that he, and the truth he represented, 'had been condemned unheard--an unexampled proceeding--unrefuted, and in headlong and criminal haste.' with reference to the attack he had made on the 'episcopal masqueraders' in the tract above mentioned, luther remarked in a letter to spalatin on july that he had purposely been so sharp in it, because he saw how vainly he had humbled himself, yielded, prayed and complained. and he added that he would just as little flatter, the king of england. king henry viii., who later on, for other reasons, broke so entirely with the church of rome and began reforms after his own fashion, had at that time gained for himself from the pope the title of 'defender of the faith,' on account of a learned scholastic treatise against luther's 'babylonish captivity.' this treatise had made such a stir, that luther thought it expedient to answer it in one of his own. the latter, originally written in latin, gives a carefully considered explanation of the points of doctrine at issue, and proceeds to prove the propositions he had previously advanced. he points out fundamental, and, indeed, irreconcilable variance between his principles and those of the king, by showing how he, luther, fought for freedom and established it, while the king, on the contrary, took up the cudgels for captivity, without even attempting to justify it by argument, but simply kept talking of what it consists of, and how people must be content to remain in it. in fact, the whole book was a mere reiteration of the dogmas of ecclesiastical authorities, of the councils, and of tradition, always taking it for granted that these dare not be disputed. 'i do not need,' says luther,' the king to teach me this.' but the personal tone adopted by luther against henry went beyond anything that his expressions to spalatin might have led one to expect, and was even more marked in a german edition of his treatise, which he published after the royal one had been translated into german. the king had, moreover, set the example of abuse, as coarse and defiant as that of his opponent. luther did not shrink from an incidental remark at the expense of other princes. 'king henry,' he says, 'must help to prove the truth of the proverb, that there are no greater fools than kings and princes.' but the most important among the works which luther was now led to undertake by his opposition to the romish church and her teaching, and by her hostile proceedings against himself, was a treatise on the secular power, which he began in december, as soon as he had finished the translation of the five books of moses. it appeared under the title of 'on the secular power, and how far obedience is due to it.' how far obedience is due to it? this was the question provoked by the commands and threats of punishment with which catholic princes were now endeavouring to aid the spiritual power in suppressing the gospel, the writings on reform, and especially the new translation of the bible. the question was, how far a christian was bound to obey. nor had luther to step forward less decisively as the champion of the rights, the divine authority, and the dignity of the civil power, against the pretensions of the catholic church. words of jesus such as these lay before him: 'but i say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.' how could these words be reconciled with the fact that the secular arm resisted wrong with force, and raised the sword against the evil-doer? the church of the middle ages and the school theology maintained that these words were not general moral commands for all christians, but merely advice for those among them who wished to attain a higher degree of perfection. hereby the whole civil government with its authorities was assigned a lower grade of ordinary morality, whilst higher morality or true perfection was to be represented in the priestly office and monasticism. on the other hand, friends of luther, ere now, while taking note that christ had spoken these words direct to all his disciples, and therefore to all christians, had been troubled to know how to establish, with regard to christians, the rights and duties of temporal power. with respect to this second point in particular luther now gives his explanation. those words of christ were unquestionably commands for all christians. they demand of every christian that he should never on his own account grasp the sword and employ force; and if only the world were full of good christians there would be no need of the, sword of secular authority. but it is necessary to wield it against evil for the general welfare, to punish sin and to preserve the peace; and therefore the true christian, in order thereby to serve his neighbour, must willingly submit to the rule of this sword, and, if god assigns him an office, must wield this sword himself. this command of scripture is confirmed by other passages, as for instance by the words of the apostle: 'let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. for there is no power but of god: the powers that be are ordained of god. for he is the minister of god to thee for good ... for he beareth not the sword in vain.' (romans xiii.). luther thus ranks the vocation of civil government together with the other vocations of moral life in the world. they are all, he said, instituted by god, and all of them, no less than the so-called priestly office, are intended and able to serve god and one's neighbour. these were ideas which laid the foundation for a new christian estimate of political, civic, and temporal life in general. thus, later on, the augsburg confession rejected the doctrine that to attain evangelical perfection, a man must renounce his worldly calling, as also the theory of the anabaptists, who would allow no christian to hold civil office or to wield the sword. but luther, while thus determining the province of secular authority, took care to impose limits on its jurisdiction, and to guard against those limits being invaded. the true spiritual government, as instituted by christ, was intended to make men good, by working upon the soul by the word, in the power of the spirit. the temporal government, whose duty it was to secure external peace and order, and to protect men against evil-doers, extends only to what is external upon earth,'--over person and property. 'for god cannot and will not allow anyone but himself alone to rule the soul.'--'no one can or shall force another to believe.'--'true is the proverb: "thoughts are free of taxes."' we must 'obey god rather than man,' as st. peter says: these words impose a limit on temporal power. luther is aware of the objection, that the temporal power does not force a man to believe, but only outwardly guards against heretics, to prevent them from leading the people astray with false doctrines. but he answers: 'such an office belongs to bishops, and not to princes. god's word must here contend for mastery. heresy is something spiritual, that cannot be hewn with steel nor burned with fire.' and among these invasions of the province and office of the word, luther includes the edict to confiscate books. herein must subjects obey god rather than such tyrannical princes. they are to leave the exercise of outward power, even in this matter, to the civil authorities, they must never venture to oppose them by force; they must suffer it, if men invade their houses, and take away their books or property. but if they attempt to rob them of their bible, they must not surrender a page or a letter. these are the most powerful and comprehensive utterances which we possess from the mouth of the reformer, about the demarcation of these provinces of authority, the independent operation of the word and the spirit, and liberty of conscience. it is doubtful, indeed, how far they are consonant with those measures which he afterwards found admissible and advisable for the protection of evangelical communities and evangelical truth against those who attempted to lead them astray. amidst such active labours the year of luther's return to wittenberg passed away. chapter iv. luther and his anti-catholic work of reformation, up to luther, as we have seen, was able to prosecute his labours at wittenberg, undisturbed by the act of the diet. in other parts of germany as well, the imperial power left wide scope for the spread of his teaching. at the next approaching diet at nüremberg no majority could be looked for again, to give effect to the consequences demanded by the edict of worms. any such expectation was the more futile, from the results, already experienced, of luther's reappearance in public. the new pope, hadrian vi., whilst adhering strictly to the doctrines of mediæval scholasticism and of church authority, nevertheless, by his honest avowal of ecclesiastical abuses, and the firmness and earnestness of his personal character, led men to expect a new era of energetic reform for the romish church, at least in regard to the discipline of the clergy and monks, and to a conscientious restraint of church ordinances, so that even men like erasmus might rest content. and yet, he was the very one who sought now to stamp out with all severity the lutheran heresy and its innovations. with this object he broke out into low abuse and slander against luther personally, as a drunkard and a debauchee. libels of this kind were perpetually repeated by the romanists, and no doubt hadrian believed them, though luther did not trouble himself much about such personal attacks, but in his letters to spalatin, simply called the pope an ass. hadrian also, like so many romish churchmen after him, was extremely zealous to impress upon princes that he who despises the sacred decrees and the heads of the church, would cease to respect a temporal throne. but the diet which assembled at nüremberg in the winter of - , replied to the demands of the pope by renewing the old grievances of the german nation, and insisting on a free christian council, to be held in germany. nor did even an unfortunate military enterprise, undertaken at this time against the archbishop of treves by sickingen, who, while fighting for his own power and the interests of the german nobles, announced his wish also to break road for the gospel, produce those disastrous results for the evangelical cause in germany which its enemies had anticipated and hoped for. sickingen, indeed, after being defeated by the superior forces of the allied princes, died of the wounds he received, but it was as clear as noonday that frederick the wise and his evangelical theologians had had nothing to do with his act of violence. luther, on hearing of sickingen's enterprise, remarked that it would be 'a very bad business,' and added, on learning the issue, 'god is a just, but a marvellous judge.' the next meeting of the diet, from whom, after hadrian's early death, his successor, clement vii.--another modern pope of leo's way of thinking--demanded anew the execution of the edict of worms, resulted in the imperial decree of april , . by this, the states of the empire agreed to execute that edict 'as far as possible,' but stipulated that the lutheran and the other new doctrines should first be 'examined with the utmost diligence,' and, together with the grievances presented by the princes against the pope and the hierarchy, should be made the subject of a representation to the council now demanded. but the inconsistency that lurked in this decree caught luther's eye and aroused his suspicion. it was scandalous, he declared in a paper upon it, that the emperor and the princes should issue 'contradictory orders.' they were going to deal with him according to the edict of worms, and proclaim him a condemned man, and persecute him, and at the same moment wait to decide what was good or bad in his doctrines. but the decree was, in fact, a subterfuge, by which they resigned the idea of executing that edict. the lord's supper could be celebrated at nüremberg in the new way before the eyes of the whole diet. well might frederick the wise hope that men would still, at least in germany, come gradually to agree in peace about the truth contained in luther's preaching. the absent emperor, indeed, remained insensible to all such influences. in the netherlands strict penal laws were in force. in a letter addressed to the german empire he condemned the decree of nüremberg, and, like hadrian, compared luther to mahomet. further, a minority of the german princes, including, in particular, ferdinand of austria, and the dukes william and louis of bavaria, entered into a league at ratisbon to execute the edict of worms, while agreeing to certain reforms in the church, according to a papal scheme proposed by his nuncio campeggio. they too began to persecute and punish the heretics. thus, then, the seed sown by luther began to germinate throughout the whole of germany. the number of lutheran preachers increased, and requests were made in many places for their services. even cochlaeus had to confess that, however bad were their ultimate objects, they showed a remarkable unselfishness and industry in their calling, and that they avoided even the appearance of pushing themselves forward in an irregular and arbitrary manner, waiting rather for their appointment in due course by the nobles or the various congregations. among the treatises and other writings on ecclesiastical and religious questions which inundated germany at that time, at least ten were written on the lutheran, one on the romish side. the complaint was that there were not more numerous and better qualified printers for the work. among the nobles who espoused the cause of luther, the support of albert of mansfeld, one of the counts of luther's native place, was particularly grateful. it was mainly by the nobles that the movement was represented in austria. but the gospel gained most ground in german towns, especially among the burgher class in the free cities of the empire. preachers were invited hither, where none already existed, and the mass was publicly abolished. this took place during and at magdeburg, frankfort-on-the-main, schwäbish hall, nüremberg, ulm, strasburg, breslau, and bremen. on saxon territory also, lutheran congregations were formed in various towns, such as zwickau, altenburg, and eisenach. in many cases luther's personal friends took part in the movement, and thus cemented more closely their friendship with the reformer. he had already some trusted fellow-labourers at nüremberg. at magdeburg his friend amsdorf was pastor. hess, the first evangelical pastor of breslau, had formed some years earlier a warm friendship with him and melancthon. link, his old friend, and the successor of staupitz as vicar-general of the augustines, held office as a preacher at altenburg, whence he was recalled, for the same purpose, in , to nüremberg, his former place of residence. wherever luther heard of evangelical communities who seemed to need especial help for their strengthening or consolation under trouble, he addressed to them letters, which were afterwards circulated in print. these were sent, for instance, to esslingen, augsburg, worms; also to his 'beloved friends in christ' at wittenberg, who had been harassed by the romanists, and whose cause he pleaded to the archbishop albert. with particular joy he sent greetings to the 'chosen and dear friends in god' in the distant towns of riga, reval, and dorpat; and he sent them also an exposition of the th psalm. the word, rejected and condemned as it had been by bishops and priests in germany, met with singular success beyond the eastern boundary of the empire, among the order of teutonic knights in prussia. the grand master of the order, albert of brandenburg, brother of the elector of brandenburg, and cousin of albert, the archbishop and cardinal, had kept up communication with luther, both orally and by letter, and had been advised by him and melancthon to make himself familiar with the gospel and the principles of the evangelical church. and, above all, there were here two bishops who espoused the new teaching, and who were anxious to tend the flocks committed to their charge as true evangelical bishops or overseers, in the sense insisted on by luther, and particularly to minister to the word by preaching and by the care of souls. these were george of polenz, bishop of samland since , and erhard of queiss, bishop of pomerania since . the members of the order, almost without exception, were on their side: they resolved to establish a temporal princedom in prussia and to renounce their vows of 'false chastity and spirituality.' the king of poland, under whose suzerainty the country had long been, solemnly invested the hitherto grand master on april , , as hereditary duke of prussia. thus prussia became the first territory that collectively embraced the reformation, whilst as yet, even in the electorate of saxony, no general measures had been taken in its support. it became, in short, the first protestant country. luther wrote to the new duke: 'i am greatly rejoiced that almighty god has so graciously and wondrously helped your princely grace to attain such an eminent position, and further my wish is that the same merciful god may continue his blessing to your grace through life, for the benefit and godly welfare of the whole country.' and to the archbishop albert he held the new duke up as a shining example, in saying of him, 'how graciously has god sent such a change, as, ten years ago, could not have been hoped for or believed in, even had ten isaiahs and pauls announced it. but because he gave room and honour to the gospel, the gospel in return has given him far more room and honour--more than he could have dared to wish for.' the gospel now received its first testimony in blood. with joyful confidence luther beheld what god had done, but could not refrain from lamenting, with sorrowful humility, that he himself had not been found worthy of martyrdom. in the imperial hereditary lands, where for some years missionaries, chiefly members of luther's own augustine order, had been actively labouring in the strength of the convictions derived from wittenberg, two young augustine monks, henry voes and john esch, were publicly burnt, on july , , as heretics. luther thereupon addressed a letter to 'the beloved christians in holland, brabant, and flanders,' praising god for his wondrous light, that he had caused again to dawn. he spoke out even stronger in some verses in which he celebrated the young martyrs; they were published no doubt originally as a broadsheet: a new song will we raise to him who ruleth, god our lord; and we will sing what god hath done, in honour of his word. at brussels in the netherlands, it was through two young lads, he hath made known his wonders, &c. they conclude as follows:-- so let us thank our god to see his word returned at last. the summer now is at the door, the winter is forepast, the tender flowerets bloom anew, and he, who hath begun, will give his work a happy end. he was, later on, deeply grieved by the death of his brother-augustine and friend henry moller of zütphen, who, after having been forced to fly from the netherlands, had begun a blessed work at bremen, and was now murdered in the most brutal manner on december , , by a mob instigated by monks, near meldorf, whither he had gone in response to an invitation from some of his companions in the faith. luther informed his christian brethren in a circular of the end of this 'blessed brother' and 'evangelist.' he mentions, with him, the two martyrs of brussels, as well as other disciples of the new doctrine; one caspar tauber, who was executed at vienna, a bookseller named georg, who was burnt at pesth, and one who had been recently burnt at prague. 'these and such as these,' he adds, 'are they whose blood will drown the popedom, together with its god, the devil.' with regard to his work of reformation, which had now spread so widely and found so many coadjutors, luther at present thought as little about the outward constitution of a new church as he had thought about any outward organisation of the war itself, or an external alliance of his adherents, or of a cleverly devised propaganda. just as here the simple word was to achieve the victory, so his whole efforts were devoted solely to restoring to the congregations the possession and enjoyment of that word in all its purity, that they might gather round it, and be thereby further edified, sustained, and guided. wherever this privilege was denied to christians, luther claimed for them the right, by virtue of their universal priesthood, to ordain a priest for themselves, and to reject the ensnaring deceits of mere human doctrine. he declared himself to this effect, in a treatise written in , and intended in the first instance for the bohemians--that is to say, for the so-called utraquists who were then the leading party in bohemia. these sectaries, whose only ground of estrangement from rome was the question of administering the cup to the laity, and who had never thought of separating themselves from the so-called apostolical succession of the episcopate in the catholic church, luther then hoped, albeit in vain, to win over to a genuine evangelical belief and practice of religion. in this treatise he went a step beyond the election of pastors by their congregations, by maintaining that a whole district, composed of such evangelical communities, might appoint their own overseer, who should exercise control over them, until the final establishment of a supreme bishopric, of an evangelical character, for the entire national church. but of any such ecclesiastical edifice for germany, wholly absorbed as he was in her immediate needs, he had not yet said a word. congregations of such a kind, and suitable for such a purpose, could only be created by preaching the word; nor had luther yet abandoned the hope that the existing german episcopate, as already had been the case in prussia, would accept an evangelical reconstruction on a much larger scale. with regard to individual congregations, moreover, it was the opinion of luther and his friends that, where the local magistrates and patrons of the church were inclined to the gospel, the appointment of pastors might be made by them in a regular way. a separation of civil communities, each represented by their own magistrate, from the ecclesiastical or religious units, was an idea wholly foreign to that time. that the word of god should be preached to the various congregations in a pure and earnest manner, that those congregations themselves should be entrusted with the work, should make it their own, and, in reliance thereon, should lift up their hearts to god with prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving,--this was the fixed object which luther held in view in all the regulations which he made at wittenberg, and wished to institute in other places. in this spirit he advanced cautiously and by degrees in the changes introduced in public worship,--changes which, as he admits, he had commenced with fear and hesitation. 'that the word itself,' he says, 'should advance mightily among christians, is shown by the whole of scripture, and christ himself says (luke x.) that "one thing is needful," namely, that mary should sit at the feet of christ, and hear his word daily. his word endures for ever, and all else must melt away before it, however much martha may have to do.' he points out as one of the great abuses of the old system of worship, that the people had to keep silence about the word, while all the time they had to accept unchristian fables and falsehoods in what was read, and sung, and preached in the churches, and to perform public worship as a work which should entitle them to the grace of god. he now set vigorously about separating the mere furniture of worship. as to the word itself, on the contrary, he was anxious to have it preached to the congregation, wherever possible, every sunday morning and evening, and on week-days, at least to the students and others, who desired to hear it: this was actually done at wittenberg. innovations, not apparently required by his principles, he shunned himself, and warned others to do so likewise. nor was he less diligent to guard against the danger of having the new forms of worship, now practised at wittenberg, made into a law for all evangelical brethren without distinction. he gave an account and estimate of them in the form of a letter to his friend hausmann, the priest at zwickau, 'conjuring' his readers 'from his very heart, for christ's sake,' that if anyone saw plainly a better way in these matters, he should make it known. no one, he declared, durst condemn or despise different forms practised by others. outward customs and ceremonies were, indeed, indispensable, but they served as little to commend us to god, as meat or drink ( cor. viii. ) served to make us well pleasing before him. in order to enable the congregations themselves to take an active part in the service, he now longed for genuine church hymns, that is to say, songs composed in the noble popular language, verse, and melody. he invited friends to paraphrase the psalms for this purpose; he had not sufficient confidence in himself for the work. and yet he was the first to attempt it. with fresh impulse and with the exuberance of true poetical genius, his verses on the brussels martyrs had flowed forth spontaneously from his inmost soul. they were the first, so far as we know, that luther had ever written, though he was now forty years of age. with the same poetic impulse he composed, probably shortly after, a hymn in praise of the 'highest blessing' that god had shown towards us in the sacrifice of his beloved son. rejoice ye now, dear christians all, and let us leap for joy, and dare with trustful, loving hearts, our praises to employ, and sing what god hath shown to man, his sweet and wondrous deed, and tell how dearly he hath won. etc. the full tone of a powerful, fresh, often uncouth, but very tender popular ballad no other writer of the time displayed like luther. and whilst seeking to compose or re-arrange hymns for congregational use in church, he now busied himself with the psalter, paraphrasing its contents in an evangelical spirit and in german metre. thus now, early in , there appeared at wittenberg the first german hymn-book, consisting at first, of only eight hymns, about half of them, such as that beginning _nun freut euch_, being original compositions of luther, and three others adapted from the psalms. in the course of the same year he brought out a further collection of twenty hymns, written by himself for the evangelical congregation there: among these is the one on the brussels martyrs. it was, in fact, the year in which german hymnody was born. luther soon found the coadjutors he had wished for. these twenty-four hymns by luther were followed in after years by only twelve more from his own pen, among the latter being his grand hymn, _ein' feste burg ist unser gott_, written probably in . of these later compositions, comparatively few expressed entirely his own ideas; most of them had reference to subjects already in the possession and use of the christian world, and of german christians in particular; that is to say, some referred to the psalms and other portions of the bible, others to parts of the catechism, others again to short german ballads, sung by the people, and even to old latin hymns. in all of them he was governed by a strict regard to what was both purely evangelical, and also suitable for the common worship of god. and yet they differ widely, one from another, in the poetical form and manner in which he now gives utterance to the longings of the heart for god, now seeks to clothe in verse suited for congregational singing words of belief and doctrine, now keeps closely to his immediate subject, now vents his emotions freely in christian sentiments and poetical form, as for example in _ein' feste burg_, the most sublime and powerful production of them all. the new hymns went forth in town and country, in churches and homes, throughout the land. often, far more than any sermons could have done, they brought home to ears and hearts the word of evangelical truth. they became weapons of war, as well as means of edification and comfort. in his preface to a small collection of songs, which luther had published in the same year, he remarks: 'i am not of opinion that the gospel should be employed to strike down and destroy all the arts, as certain high ecclesiastics would have it. i would rather that all the arts, and especially music, should be employed in the service of him who has created them and given them to man.' what he says here about music and poetry, he applied equally to all departments of knowledge. he saw art and learning now menaced by wrong-minded enthusiasts. for this reason he was particularly anxious that they should be cultivated in the schools. with great zeal he directed his counsels to the general duty of caring for the good education and instruction of the young, as indeed he had done some time before in his address to the german nobility. these, above all, he said, must be rescued from the clutches of satan. he had again in his mind schools for girls. thus in he recommended the conversion of the cloisters of the mendicant orders into schools 'for boys and girls.' the same advice was offered by eberlin, already mentioned, who was then living at wittenberg, and who made the suggestion to the magistrates of ulm. but luther's chief advice was directed to the requirements of the church and the state, or 'temporal government,' which assuredly were then in need of educated and well-cultured servants. for the training here required, the ancient languages, latin and greek, were indispensable, and for the ministers of the church, greek and hebrew in particular, as the languages in which the word of god was originally conveyed to man. 'languages,' he says, 'are the sheaths which enclose the sword of the spirit, the shrine in which this treasure is carried, the vessel which contains this drink.' he insisted further on the study of history, and especially of that of germany. it was a matter of regret to him that so little had been done towards writing the history of germany, whilst the greeks, the romans, and the hebrews had compiled theirs with such industry. 'o! how many histories and sayings,' he remarked, 'we ought to have in our possession, of all that has been done and said in different parts of germany, and of which we know nothing. that is why, in other countries, people know nothing about us germans, and all the world calls us german beasts, who can do nothing but fight, and guzzle, and drink.' such were his opinions, as given in , in a public letter 'to the councillors of all the states of germany; an appeal to institute and maintain christian schools.' the enthusiasm which had recently inspired young men of talent and ambition to study and imitate the ancient classics, and had banded together the leading teachers of humanism, very quickly died away. the universities everywhere were less frequented. enemies of luther ascribed this to the influence of his doctrines, though matters were little better where his doctrines were repudiated. it is not, indeed, surprising that the humanist movement, with its regard for formal culture and aesthetic enjoyment, and its aristocracy of intellect, should retire perforce before the supreme struggle, involving the highest issues and interests of life, which was now being waged by the german people and the church. a further cause of this decline of academical studies was to be found, no doubt, in the vigorous, and somewhat giddy bound taken by trade and commerce in those days of increased communication and extensive geographical discovery, and in the striving after material gain and enjoyment, which seemed to find satisfaction in other ways more easily and rapidly than by learned industry and the pursuit of culture. it was from these quarters that came the complaints against the great merchants' houses, the usury, the rise in prices, the luxury and extravagance of the age,--complaints which were re-echoed alike by the friends and foes of the reformation. the reformers themselves fully recognised the thanks they owed to those humanistic studies, and their permanent value for church and state. in the new church regulations introduced in the towns and districts which accepted the evangelical teaching, the school system then played a prominent part. nüremberg, some years after, was among the most active to establish a good high school. luther himself went in april with melancthon to his native place eisleben, to assist in promoting a school, founded there by count albert of mansfeld: his friend agricola was the head master. thus we see that the work of planting and building occupied luther at this time more than the contest with his old opponents. well might he, as he says in his hymn, rejoice to see the spring-tide and the flowers, and hope for a rich summer. on the other hand, not only did the adherents of the old system knit their ranks together more closely, and, like the confederates of ratisbon in , profess their desire to do something at least to satisfy the general complaint of the corruption of the church; but men even, who from their undeniably deep and earnest striving for religion, seemed originally called to take part in the work and war, now separated themselves from luther and his associates, not venturing to break free from the bonds of old ecclesiastical tradition. still more was this the case with men of humanistic culture, whose temporary alliance with luther had been dictated more by the interest they felt in the arts and letters threatened by the old monastic spirit, and by the open scandal caused by the outrageous abuses of the clergy and monachism, than by any sympathy with his religious principles and ideas. and to those who wavered in so momentous a decision, and shrank back from it and the contests it involved, there was plenty in what they observed among luther's adherents, to give them occasion for still further reflection. it was not to be denied that, sharply as luther had reproved the conduct of the wittenberg innovators, the new preaching gave rise among excited multitudes, in many places, to disturbance, disorder, and acts of violence against obstinate monks and priests; and all this was held up as a proof of what the consequences must be of a general dissolution of religious ties. the desertion of their convents by monks and nuns, ostensibly on the ground of their newly-proclaimed liberty, but in reality, for the most part, as was alleged against them by the catholics, for the sake of carnal freedom, was denounced with no small severity by luther himself; but, in so doing, he recalled to mind the fact, that equally low interests had led them into the convents, and that the cloisters also, after their fashion, indulged in the 'worship of the belly.' luther was just as indignant that the great majority of those who refused to be robbed any longer of their money and goods at the demand and by the deceits of the papal church, now withheld them both from serving the objects of christian love and benevolence, which they were all the more called on to promote. the enemies of the new doctrine began already to charge against it that the faith, which was supposed to make men so blessed, bore so little good fruit. lastly, there were many honest-minded men, and many, also, who looked about for an excuse for abstaining from the battle, whom luther's personal participation in the din and clamour of the fray served to scandalise, if not to alienate from his cause. thus among those who had formerly been united by a common endeavour to improve the condition of the church and repel the tyranny of rome, a crisis had now begun. of all who drew back from luther's work of reformation, none had been more intimately attached to him than his spiritual father, staupitz. and this intimacy he retained as abbot of salzburg. in his view, nothing of all the external matters to which the reformation was directed, seemed so important as to warrant the endangerment of religious concord and unity in the church. luther expressed to him the sorrow he felt at his estrangement, while renewing, at the same time, his assurance of unalterable affection and gratitude. staupitz himself felt unhappy in his attitude and position. but even as abbot, and in the proximity of the archbishop of salzburg, a man of very different views and temperament to himself, he remained true to his doctrine of faith, as being the only means of salvation and the root of all goodness. and the very last year of his life, in a letter to luther, recommending to him a young theologian who was about to further his education at wittenberg, he assured him of his unchanging love, 'passing the love of women' ( sam. i. ), and gratefully acknowledged how his beloved martin had first led him away 'to the living pastures from the husks for the pigs.' luther gave a friendly welcome to the young man recommended to his care, and assisted him in gaining the desired degree of master of philosophy. this is the last that we hear of the intercourse between these two friends. on december , , staupitz died from a fit of apoplexy. the earlier acquaintance between the reformer and the great humanist, erasmus, had now developed into an irreconcilable enmity. the latter had long been unable to refrain from venting, in private and public utterances, his dissatisfaction and bitterness at the storm aroused by luther, which was distracting the church and disturbing quiet study. patrons of his in high places--above all, king henry viii. of england--urged him to take up the cause of the church against luther in a pamphlet; and, difficult as he felt it to take a prominent part in such a contest, he was the less able to decline their overtures, since other churchmen were reproaching him with having furthered by his earlier writings the pernicious movement. he chose a subject which would enable him, at any rate, while attacking luther, to represent his own personal convictions, and to reckon on the concurrence not only of romish zealots but also of a number of his humanist friends, and even many men of deeply moral and religious disposition. luther, it will be remembered, had told him plainly from the first that he knew too little of the grace of god, which alone could give salvation to sinners, and strength and ability to the good. erasmus now retorted by his diatribe 'on free will,' by virtue whereof, he said, man was able and was bound to procure his own blessing and final happiness. luther, on perusing this treatise, in september , was struck with the feebleness of its contents. so far, indeed, from defining the operation of the human will, erasmus floated vaguely about in loose and incoherent propositions, evidently not from want of extreme care and circumspection, but from the fact that, in this province of antiquarian research, he failed in the necessary acuteness and depth of observation and thought. he declared himself ready to yield obedience to all decisions of the church, but without expressing any opinion as to the real infallibility of an ecclesiastical tribunal. throughout his whole treatise, however, there were personal thrusts at his enemy. luther, as he said, only wished to answer this diatribe out of regard to the position enjoyed by its author, and, from his sheer aversion to the book, for a long while postponed his reply. we shall see moreover, very shortly, what other pressing duties and events engrossed his attention for some time after. it was not until a year had elapsed, that his reply appeared, entitled 'on the bondage of the will.' herein he pushes the propositions to which erasmus took exception to their logical conclusion. free will, as it is called, has always been subject to the supremacy of a higher power; with unredeemed sinners to the power of the devil; with the redeemed, to the saving, sanctifying, and sheltering hand of god. for the latter, salvation is assured by his almighty and grace-conferring will. the fact that in other sinners no such conversion to god and to a redeeming faith in his word is effected, can only be ascribed to the inscrutable will of god himself, nor durst man dispute thereon with his maker. luther in this went further than did afterwards the evangelical church that bears his name. and even he, later on, abstained himself and warned others to abstain from discussing such divine mysteries and questions connected with them. but as for erasmus, he never ceased to regard him as one who, from his superficial worldliness, was blind to the highest truth of salvation. in respect to the battle against catholic churchdom and dogma, the controversy between luther and erasmus presents no new issue or further development. but in company with their old master, other humanists also, the leading champions of the general culture of the age, dissociated themselves from luther, and returned, as his enemies, to their allegiance to the traditional system of the church. next to erasmus, the most important of these men was pirkheimer of nüremberg, to whom we have already referred. chapter v. the reformer against the fanatics and peasants up to . in his new as in his old contests, luther's experiences remained such as he described them to hartmuth of kronberg, on his return to wittenberg. 'all my enemies, near as they have reached me, have not hit me as hard as i have now been hit by our own people.' at first, indeed, carlstadt kept silent, and continued quietly, till easter , his lectures at the university. but inwardly he was inclined to a mysticism resembling that of the zwickau fanatics, and imbibed, like theirs, from mediæval writings; and he too, soon turned, with these views, to new and practical projects of reform. he now began to unfold in writing his ideas of a true union of the soul with god. he too explained how the souls of all creatures should empty themselves, so to speak, and prepare themselves in absolute passiveness, in 'inaction and lassitude,' for a glorified state. his profession of learning, and his academical and clerical dignities he resigned, as ministering to vanity. he bought a small property near wittenberg, and repaired thither to live as a layman and peasant. he wore a peasant's coat, and mixed with the other peasants as 'neighbour andrew.' luther saw him there, standing with bare feet amid heaps of manure, and loading it on a cart. he found a place for the exercise of his new work in the church at orlamünde on the saale, above jena. this parish, like several others, had been incorporated with the university at wittenberg, and its revenues formed part of its endowment, being specially attached to the archdeaconry of the convent church, which was united with carlstadt's professorship. the living there, with most of its emoluments, had passed accordingly to carlstadt, but the office of pastor could only be performed by vicars, as they were called, regularly nominated, and appointed by the elector. carlstadt now took advantage of a vacancy in the office, to go on his own authority as pastor to orlamünde, without wishing to resign his appointment and its pay at wittenberg. by his preaching and personal influence he soon won over the local congregation to his side, and ended by gaining as great an influence here as he had done at wittenberg. here also the images were abolished and destroyed, crucifixes and other representations of christ no less than images of the saints. carlstadt now openly declared that no respect was to be paid to any local authority, nor any regard to other congregations; they were to execute freely the commands of god, and whatever was contrary to god, they were to cast down and hew to pieces. and in interpreting and applying these commands of god he went to more extravagant lengths than ever. must not the letter of the old testament be the law for other things as well as images? acting on this idea, he demanded that sunday should be observed with rest in all the mosaic rigour of the term; this rest he identified with that 'inaction,' which formed his idea of true union with god. he proceeded then to advocate polygamy, as permitted to the jews in the old testament: he actually advised an inhabitant of orlamünde to take a second wife, in addition to the one then living. he began, at the same time, to dispute the real presence of the body and blood of christ in the sacrament--a doctrine which luther steadfastly insisted on in his contest with the catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. by an extraordinary perversion, as is evident at a glance, of the meaning of christ's words of institution, he maintained that when our saviour said 'this is my body,'--alluding, of course, to the bread which he was then distributing, he was not referring to the bread at all, but only to his own body, as he stood there. the inhabitants of the neighbouring town of kahla were seized with the same spirit. these mystical ideas and phrases assumed strange forms of expression among the common people, who jumbled together in wild confusion the supernatural and the material. carlstadt kept up also a secret correspondence with münzer. the question of the authority of the old testament soon took a wider range. it seemed to be one of the authority of scripture in general, which was contended for against the papists. if the authority of god's word in the old testament applied to the whole domain of civil life, should it not equally apply, as against particular regulations established by civil society? on these principles, for example, all taking of interest, as well as usury, was declared to be forbidden, just as it had been forbidden to god's people of old. a restoration of the mosaic year of jubilee was even talked of, when after fifty years all land which had passed into other hands should revert to its original owners. with eagerness the people took up these new ideas of social reform, so specious and so full of promises. the evangelical and earnest preacher, strauss at eisenach, worked zealously with word and pen in this direction. even a court-preacher of duke john, wolfgang stein at weimar, espoused the movement. meanwhile münzer came again to central germany. he had succeeded, at easter , in obtaining the office of pastor at allstedt, a small town in a lateral valley of the unstrut. in him, more than in any other, the spirit of the zwickau prophets fermented with full force, and was preparing for a violent outburst. alone, in the room of a church tower, he held secret intercourse with his god, and boasted of his answers and revelations. he affected the appearance and demeanour of a man whose soul was absorbed in tranquillity, devoid of all finite ideas or aspirations, and open and free to receive god's spirit and inner word. more violently than even the champions of catholic asceticism, he reproached luther for leading a comfortable, carnal life. but his whole energies were directed to establishing a kingdom of the saints,--an external one, with external power and splendour. his preaching dwelt incessantly on the duty of destroying and killing the ungodly, and especially all tyrants. he wished to see a practical application given to the words of the mosaic dispensation, commanding god's people to destroy the heathen nations from out of the promised land, to overthrow their altars, and burn their graven images with fire. community of property was to be a particular institution of the kingdom of god, the property being distributed to each man according to his need: whatever prince or lord refused to do this, was to be hanged or beheaded. meanwhile, münzer sought by means of secret emissaries in all directions to enlist the saints into a secret confederacy. his chief associate was the former monk, pfeifer at mühlhausen, not far from allstedt. the orlamündians, however, whom also he endeavoured to seduce to his policy of violence, would have nothing to say to such overtures. the elector frederick even now came only tardily to the resolve, to interpose, in these ecclesiastical matters and disputes, his authority as sovereign, nor did luther himself desire his intervention so long as the struggle was one of minds about the truth. duke john had been strongly influenced by the ideas of his court-preacher. the princes still hoped to be able to restore peace between luther and his colleague, carlstadt, who, with all his misty projects, was still of importance as a theologian. carlstadt consented, indeed, at easter in , to resume quietly his duties at wittenberg university. but he soon returned to orlamünde, to re-assert his position there as head and reformer of the church. with regard to the question of mosaic and civil law, luther was now invited by john frederick, the son of duke john, to express his opinion. it is easy to conceive how this question might present, even to upright and calm-judging adherents of the evangelical preaching, considerations of difficulty and much inward doubt. it had cropped up as a novelty, and, as it seemed, in necessary connection with this preaching: moreover, on its answer depended a revolution of all ordinances of state and society, in accordance with the command of god. luther's views on this subject, however, were perfectly clear, and he expressed himself accordingly. in his opinion, the answer had been given by the keynote of evangelical teaching. it lay in the distinction between spiritual and temporal government, the essential features of which he had already explained in in his treatise 'on the secular power.' the life of the soul in god, its reconciliation and redemption, its relations and duty to god and fellow-man in faith and love--these are the subjects dealt with in the gospel message of salvation, or the biblical revelation in its completeness. god has left to the practical understanding and needs of man, and to the historical development of peoples and states under his overruling providence, the arrangement of forms of law for social life, without the necessity of any special revelation for that purpose. it is the duty of the secular power to administer the existing laws, and to make new ones in a proper and legal manner, according as they may think fit. that god prescribed to the people of israel external, civil ordinances by the mouth of moses, was part of his scheme of education. christians are not bound by these ordinances,--no more, indeed, than is their inner life and right conduct made conditional on outward rules and forms. moral commands alone belong to that part of the mosaic law whereof the sanction is eternal; and to the fulfilment of these commands, written, as st. paul says, from the beginning on the hearts of men, the spirit of god now urges his redeemed people. no doubt the law of moses, in regard to civil life, might contain much that would be useful for other peoples also in that respect. but it would, in that case, be the business of the powers that be to examine and borrow from it, just as germany borrowed her civil law from the romans. such, briefly stated, are the views which luther enunciated with clearness and consistency, in his writings and sermons. he guards the civil power as jealously now against an irregular assertion of religious principles and biblical authority, as he had formerly done against the aggressions of an ecclesiastical hierarchy, while at the same time he defends the religious life of christians against the dangers and afflictions which that hierarchy threatened. thus he answered the prince, on june , , to this effect: temporal laws are something external, like eating and drinking, house and clothing. at present the laws of the empire have to be maintained, and faith and love can coexist with them very well. if ever the zealots of the mosaic law become emperors, and govern the world as their own, they may choose, if they please, the law of moses; but christians at all times are bound to support the law which the civil authority imposes. in münzer luther looked for a near outbreak of the evil spirit. he alluded to him in his letter of june , as the 'satan of allstedt,' adding that he thought he was not yet quite fledged. he soon heard more about him, namely, that 'his spirit was going to strike out with the fist.' on this subject he wrote the next month to the elector frederick and duke john, and published his letter. against münzer's mere words--his preaching and his personal revilements--he was not now concerned to defend himself. 'let them boldly preach,' he says, 'what they can.... let the spirits rend and tear each other. a few, perhaps, may be seduced; but that happens in every war. wherever there is a battle and fighting, some one must fall and be wounded.' he repeats here, what he had said before, that antichrist should be destroyed 'without hands,' and that christ contended with the spirit of his word. but if they really meant to strike out with the fist, then luther would have the prince say to them, 'keep your fists quiet, for that is our office, or else leave the country.' in august luther came himself to weimar, in obedience to a wish expressed by the two princes. with the court-preacher he had come to a friendly understanding. münzer had just left allstedt, an official report of his dangerous proceedings having been forwarded from there to weimar, whither he was summoned for an examination and inquiry. on august luther wrote from this town to the magistrate of mühlhausen, where münzer, as he heard, had taken refuge and had already mustered a party. he warned the people of mühlhausen to wait at least before receiving münzer, until they had heard 'what sort of children he and his followers were.' they would not remain long in the dark about him. he was a tree, as he had shown at zwickau and allstedt, which bore no fruit but murder and rebellion. from weimar luther travelled on to orlamünde. on august he arrived at jena, where a preacher named reinhard was staying with carlstadt. luther here preached against the 'spirit of allstedt,' which destroyed images, despised the sacrament, and incited to rebellion. carlstadt, who was present and heard the sermon, waited on him afterwards at his lodging, to defend himself against these charges. luther insisted, notwithstanding, that carlstadt was 'an associate of the new prophets.' he challenged him finally to abandon his intrigues and confute him openly in writing, and the heated interview ended by carlstadt promising to do so, and by luther giving him a florin as a pledge and token of the bargain. from jena luther went through kahla, where also he preached, to orlamünde. the people here had been anxious for a personal discussion with him, but in writing to him for that purpose, had addressed him in words as follows: 'you despise all those who, by god's command, destroy dumb idols, against which you trump up feeble evidence out of your own head, and not grounded on scripture. your venturing thus publicly to slander us, members of christ, shows that you are no member of the real christ.' the discussion he held with them led to no success, and he gave up any further attempt to convince them; for, as he said, they burned like a fire, as if they longed to devour him. on his departure they pursued him with savage shouts of execration. carlstadt, a few weeks later, was deprived of his professorship, and had to leave the country. luther put in a word for the people of orlamünde as 'good simple folk,' who had been seduced by a stronger will. but against carlstadt's whole conduct and teaching he launched an elaborate attack in a pamphlet, published in two parts, at the close of and the beginning of the following year. it was entitled 'against the celestial prophets, concerning images and the sacrament, &c.,' with the motto 'their folly shall be manifest unto all men' ( timothy iii. ). for in carlstadt he sought to expose and combat the same spirit that dwelt in the zwickau prophets and in münzer, and that threatened to produce still worse results. if carlstadt, like moses, was right in teaching people to break down images, and in calling in for this purpose the aid of the disorderly rabble, instead of the proper authorities, then the mob had the power and right to execute in like manner all the commands of god. and the consequence and sequel of this would be, what was soon shown by münzer. 'it will come to this length,' says luther, 'that they will have to put all ungodly people to death; for so moses (deut. vii.), when he told the people to break down the images, commanded them also to kill without mercy all those who had made them in the land of canaan.' the great storm, announced and prepared by the 'spirit of allstedt,' broke loose even sooner than could have been expected. münzer had really appeared at mühlhausen. the town-council, however, were still able to insist on his leaving the place, together with his friend pfeifer. he then wandered about for several weeks in the south-west of germany, exciting disturbance wherever he went. but on september he returned with pfeifer to mühlhausen, where he preached in his wonted manner, propounded to the people in the streets his doctrines and revelations, and attracted the mob to his side, while respectable citizens and members of the magistracy left the town from fear of the mischief that was threatening. towards the end of february he was offered a regular post as pastor, and soon after all the old magistrates were turned out and others more favourable to him elected in their place. the multitude raged against images and convents. the peasants from the neighbourhood flocked in, anxious for the general equality which was promised them. luther wrote to a friend, 'münzer is king and emperor at mühlhausen.' meanwhile, in southern germany peasant insurrections had broken out in various places since the summer of this year. in itself, there was nothing novel in this. repeatedly during the latter part of the previous century, the poor peasantry had risen and erected their banner, the 'shoe of the league' (_bundschuh_), so called from the rustic shoes which the insurgents wore. their grievances were the intolerable and ever-growing burdens, laid upon them by the lay and clerical magnates, the taxes of all kinds squeezed from them by every ingenious device, and the feudal service which they were forced to perform. the nobles had, in fact, towards the close of the middle ages, usurped a much larger exercise of their ancient privileges against them, by means partly of a dexterous manipulation of the old roman law, and partly of the ignorance of that law which prevailed among their vassals. on the other side, complaints were heard at that time of the insolence shown by the wealthier peasants; of the luxury, in which they tried to rival their masters; and of the arrogance and defiant demeanour of the peasantry in general. the oppression endured by any particular class of the civil community does not usually lead to violent disturbances and outbreaks, unless and until that class is awakened to a higher sense of its own importance and has acquired an increase of power. the peasants found, moreover, discontented spirits like themselves among the lower orders in the towns, who were avowed enemies of the upper classes, and who complained bitterly of the hardships and oppressions suffered by small people at the hands of the great merchants and commercial companies,--in a word, from the power of capital. furthermore, when once the peasants rose in rebellion against their masters, the latter also, including the nobility, showed an inclination here and there to favour a general revolution, if only to remedy the defects of their own position. and, in truth, throughout the german empire at that time there was a general movement pressing for a readjustment of the relations of the various classes to each other and to the imperial power. ideas of a total reconstruction of society and the state had penetrated the mass of the people, to an extent never known before. thus the way was paved, and incentives already supplied for a powerful popular movement, apart altogether from the question of church reform. and indeed this question luther was anxious, as we have seen, to restrict to the domain of spiritual, as distinguished from secular, that is to say, political and civil action. it was impossible, however, but that the accusations of lying, tyranny, and hostility to evangelical truth, now freely levelled against the dominant priesthood and the secular lords who were persecuting the gospel, should serve to intensify to the utmost the prevailing bitterness against external oppression. with the same firmness and decision with which luther condemned all disorderly and violent proceedings in support of the gospel, he had also long been warning its persecutors of the inevitable storm which they would bring upon themselves. other evangelical preachers, however, as for instance, eberlin and strauss, mingled with their popular preaching all sorts of suggestions of social reform. at last men went about among the people, with open or disguised activity, whose principles were directly opposed to those of luther, but who proclaimed themselves, nevertheless, enthusiasts for the gospel which he had brought again to light, or which, as they pretended, they had been the first to reveal, together with true evangelical liberty. they appealed to god's word in support of the claims and grievances of the oppressed classes; they grasped their weapons by virtue of the divine law. hence the peculiar ardour and energy that marked the insurrection, although the enthusiasm, thus kindled, was united with the utmost barbarity and licentiousness. never has germany been threatened with a revolution so vast and violent, or so immeasurable in its possible results. on no single man's word did so much depend as on that of luther, the genuine man of the people. the movement began late in the summer of in the black forest and hegau. after the beginning of the next year it continued rapidly to spread, and the different groups of insurgents who were fighting here and there, combined in a common plan of action. like a flood the movement forced its way eastwards into austria, westwards into alsatia, northwards into franconia, and even as far as thuringia. at rothenburg on the tauber, carlstadt had prepared the way for it by inciting the people to destroy the images. the demands in which the peasants were unanimous, were now drawn up in twelve articles. these still preserved a very moderate aspect. they claimed above all the right of each parish to choose its own minister. tithes were only to be abolished in part. the peasants were determined to be regarded no longer as the 'property of others,' for christ had redeemed all alike with his blood. they demanded for everyone the right to hunt and fish, because god had given to all men alike power over the animal creation. they based their demands upon the word of god; trusting to his promises they would venture the battle. 'if we are wrong,' they said, 'let luther set us right by the scriptures.' god, who had freed the children of israel from the hand of pharaoh, would now shortly deliver his people. in these articles, and in other proclamations of the peasantry, there were none of the wild imaginations of münzer and his prophets, nor their ideas of a kingdom and schemes of murder. they burned down, it is true, both convents and cities, and had done so from the outset. still in some places a more peaceable understanding was arrived at with the upper classes, although neither party placed any real confidence in the other. when now the articles arrived at wittenberg, and luther heard how the insurgents appealed to him, he prepared early in april to make a public declaration, in which he arraigned their proceedings, but at the same time exhorted the princes to moderation. he was just then called away by count albert of mansfeld to eisleben, to assist, as we have seen, in the establishment of a new school in that town. he set off thither on easter sunday, april , after preaching in the morning. there he wrote his 'exhortation to peace: on the twelve articles of the peasantry in swabia. in this manifesto he sharply rebukes those princes and nobles, bishops and priests, who cease not to rage against the gospel, and in their temporal government 'tax and fleece their subjects, for the advancement of their own pomp and pride, until the common people can endure it no longer.' if god for their punishment allowed the devil to stir up tumult against them, he and his gospel were not to blame; but he counselled them to try by gentle means to soften, if possible, god's wrath against them. as for the peasants, he had never from the first concealed from them his suspicions, that many of them only pretended to appeal to scripture, and offered for mere appearance' sake to be further instructed therein. but he wished to speak to them affectionately, like a friend and a brother, and he admitted also that godless lords often laid intolerable burdens upon the people. but however much in their articles might be just and reasonable, the gospel, he said, had nothing to do with their demands, and by their conduct they showed that they had forgotten the law of christ. for by the divine law it was forbidden to extort anything from the authorities by force: the badness of the latter was no excuse for violence and rebellion. respecting the substance of their demands, their first article, claiming to elect their own pastor, if the civil authority refused to provide one, was right enough and christian; but in that case they must maintain him at their own expense, and on no account protect him by force against the civil power. as for the remaining articles, they had nothing whatever to do with the gospel. he tells the peasants plainly, that if they persist in their rebellion, they are worse enemies to the gospel than the pope and emperor, for they act against the gospel in the gospel's own name. he is bound to speak thus to them, although some among them, poisoned by fanatics, hate him and call him a hypocrite, and the devil, who was not able to kill him through the pope, would now like to destroy and devour him. he is content if only he can save some at least of the good-hearted among them from the danger of god's indignation. in conclusion, he gives to both sides, the nobles and the peasants, his 'faithful counsel and advice, that a few counts and lords should be chosen from the nobility, and a few councillors from the towns, and that matters should be adjusted and composed in an amicable manner--that so the affair, if it cannot be arranged in a christian spirit, may at least be settled according to human laws and agreements.' thus spoke luther, with all his accustomed frankness, fervency, power, and bluntness, equally indifferent to the favour of the people or of their rulers. but what fruit, indeed, could be looked for from his words, uttered evidently with violent inward emotion, when popular passion was so excited? was it not rather to be feared that the peasants would greedily fasten on the first portion of his pamphlet, which was directed against the nobles, and then shut their ears all the more closely against the second, which concerned their own misconduct? the pamphlet could hardly have been written, and much less published, before new rumours and forebodings crowded upon luther, such as made him think its contents and language no longer applicable to the emergency, but that now it was his duty to sound aloud the call to battle against the enemies of peace and order. 'in my former tract,' he said, 'i did not venture to condemn the peasants, because they offered themselves to reason and better instruction. but before i could look about me, forth they rush, and fight and plunder and rage like mad dogs.... the worst is at mühlhausen, where the arch-devil himself presides.' in south germany, on that very easter sunday when luther set out for eisleben, the scene of horror was enacted at weinsberg, where the peasants, amid the sound of pipes and merriment, drove the unhappy count of helfenstein upon their spears, before the eyes of his wife and child. luther's ignorance of this and similar atrocities, at the time when he was writing his pamphlet at eisleben, is easily intelligible from the slow means of communication then existing. soon the news came, however, of bands of rioters in thuringia, busy with the work of pillage, incendiarism, and massacre, and of a rising of the peasantry in the immediate neighbourhood. towards the end of april they achieved a crowning triumph by their victorious entry into erfurt, where the preacher, eberlin of günzburg, with true loyalty and courage, but all in vain, had striven, with words of exhortation and warning, to pacify the armed multitude encamped outside the town, and their sympathisers and associates inside. on april münzer advanced to mühlhausen, the 'arch-devil, 'as luther called him, but as he described himself, the 'champion of the lord.' he came with four hundred followers, and was joined by large masses of the peasants. his 'only fear,' as he said in his summons to the miners of mansfeld, 'was that the foolish men would fall into the snare of a delusive peace.' he promised them a better result. 'wherever there are only three among you who trust in god and seek nothing but his honour and glory, you need not fear a hundred thousand.... forward now!' he cried; 'to work! to work! it is time that the villains were chased away like dogs.... to work! relent not if esau gives you fair words. give no heed to the wailings of the ungodly; they will beg, weep, and entreat you for pity, like children. show them no mercy, as god commanded moses (deut. vii.) and has declared the same to us.... to work! while the fire is hot; let not the blood cool upon your swords.... to work! while it is day. god is with you; follow him!' of luther he spoke in terms of peculiar hatred and contempt. in a letter which he addressed to 'brother albert of mansfeld,' with the object of converting the count, he alluded to him in expressions of the coarsest possible abuse. in thuringia, in the harz, and elsewhere, numbers of convents, and even castles, were reduced to ashes. the princes were everywhere unprepared with the necessary troops, while the insurgents in thuringia and saxony counted more than , men. the former, therefore, endeavoured to strengthen themselves by coalition. duke john, at weimar, prepared himself for the worst: his brother, the elector frederick, was lying seriously ill at his castle at lochau (now annaburg) in the district of torgau. at this crisis luther, having left eisleben, appeared in person among the excited population. he preached at stolberg, nordhausen, and wallhausen. in his subsequent writings he could bear witness of himself, how he had been himself among the peasants, and how, more than once, he had imperilled life and limb. on may we find him at weimar; and a few days afterwards in the county of mansfeld. here he wrote to his friend, the councillor rühel of mansfeld, advising him not to persuade count albert to be 'lenient in this affair'--that is, against the insurgents; for the civil power must assert its rights and duties, however god might rule the issue. 'be firm,' he entreats rühel, 'that his grace may go boldly on his way. leave the matter to god, and fulfil his commands to wield the sword as long as strength endures. our consciences are clear, even if we are doomed to be defeated.... it is but a short time, and the righteous judge will come.' luther now hastened back to his elector, having received a summons from him at lochau. but before he could arrive there, frederick had peacefully breathed his last, on may . faithfully and discreetly, and in the honest conviction that truth would prevail, he had accorded luther his favour and protection, whilst purposely abstaining to employ his power as ruler for infringing or invading the old-established ordinances of the church. he allowed full liberty of action to the bishops, and carefully avoided any personal intercourse with luther. but in the face of death, he confessed the truth of the gospel, as preached by luther, by partaking of the communion in both kinds, and refusing the sacrament of extreme unction. when his corpse was brought in state to wittenberg, and buried in the convent church, luther, who had to preach twice on the occasion, spoke of the universal grief and lamentation that 'our head is fallen, a peaceful man and ruler, a calm head.' and he pointed out as the 'most grievous sorrow of all,' how this loss had happened just in those difficult and wondrous times when, unless god interposed his arm, destruction threatened the whole of germany. he exhorted his hearers to confess to god their own ingratitude for his mercy in having given them such a noble vessel of his grace. but of those who set themselves against authorities, he declared, in the words of the apostle (rom. xiii. ), that 'they shall receive to themselves damnation.' 'this text,' he said, 'will do more than all the guns and spears.' quite in the same spirit that dictated his letter sent to rühel only a few days before at mansfeld, luther now sent forth a public summons 'against the murderous and plundering bands of peasants.' he began it with the words already quoted, 'before i could look about me, forth they rush ... and rage like mad dogs.' thus he wrote when he saw the danger was at its highest. he even suggested the possibility 'that the peasants might get the upper hand (which god forbid!);' and that 'god perhaps willed that, in preparation for the last day, the devil should be allowed to destroy all order and authority, and the world turned into a howling wilderness.' but he called upon the christian authorities, with all the more urgency and vehemence, to use the sword against the devilish villains, as god had given them command. they should leave the issue to god, acknowledge to him that they had well deserved his judgments, and thus with a good conscience and confidence 'fight as long as they could move a muscle.' whosoever should fall on their side would be a true martyr in god's eyes, if he had fought with such a conscience. then, thinking of the many better people who had been forced by the bloodthirsty peasants and murderous prophets to join the devilish confederacy, he broke out by exclaiming, 'dear lords, help them, save them, take pity upon these poor men; but as to the rest, stab, crush, strangle whom you can.' these words of luther were speedily fulfilled by the events. the saxon princes, the landgrave philip of hesse, the duke of brunswick, and the counts of mansfeld combined together before the mass of the peasants in thuringia and saxony had collected into a large army. on may the forces of münzer, numbering about , men, were defeated in the battle of frankenhausen. münzer himself was taken prisoner, and, crushed in mind and spirit, was executed like a criminal. a few days before, the main army of the swabian peasants had been routed, and during the following weeks, one stronghold of the rebellion after another was reduced, and the horrors perpetrated by the peasants were repaid with fearful vengeance on their heads. the landgrave philip, and john, the new elector of saxony, distinguished themselves by their clemency in dismissing unpunished to their homes, after the victory, a number of the insurgent peasants. but luther's violent denunciations now gave offence even to some of his friends. his catholic opponents, and those even who saw no harm in burning heretics wholesale for no other reason than their faith, reproached him then, and do so even now, with horrible cruelty for this language. luther replied to the 'complaints and questions about his pamphlet,' with a public 'epistle on the harsh pamphlet against the peasants.' his excitement and irritation was increased by what he heard talked about his conduct. he maintained what he had said. but he also reminded his readers, that he had never, as his calumniators accused him, spoken of acting against the conquered and humbled, but solely of smiting those actually engaged in rebellion. he declared further, at the close of his new and forcible remarks on the use of the sword, that christian authorities, at any rate were bound, if victorious, to 'show mercy not only to the innocent, but also to the guilty.' as for the 'furious raging and senseless tyrants, who even after the battle cannot satiate themselves with blood, and throughout their life never trouble themselves about christ'--with these he will have nothing whatever to do. similarly, in a small tract on münzer, containing characteristic extracts from the writings of this 'bloodthirsty prophet,' as a warning to the people, luther entreated the lords and civil authorities 'to be merciful to the prisoners and those who surrendered, ... so that the tables should not be turned upon the victors.' if we have now to lament, as we must, that after the rebellion was put down, nothing was done to remedy the real evils that caused it; nay, that those very evils were rather increased as a punishment for the vanquished, this reproach at least applies just as much to the catholic lords, both spiritual and temporal, as to the evangelical authorities or luther. in addition also to his alleged harshness and severity to the insurgents, luther was accused, both then and since, by his ecclesiastical opponents, of having given rise to the rebellion by his preaching and writings. when the danger and anxiety were over, emser had the effrontery to say of him in some popular doggrel, 'now that he has lit the fire, he washes his hands like pilate, and turns his cloak to the wind;' and again, 'he himself cannot deny that he exhorted you to rebellion, and called all of you dear children of god, who gave up to it your lives and property, and washed your hands in blood. thus did he write in public, and thereto has he striven.' [illustration: fig. .--münzer (his execution in the background.) from an old woodcut.] in answer to this charge, luther referred to his treatise 'on the secular power,' and to other of his writings. 'i know well,' he was able to say with truth, 'that no teacher before me has written so strongly about secular authority; my very enemies ought to thank me for this. who ever made a stronger stand against the peasants, with writing and preaching, than myself?' among the estates of the empire, not even the most violent enemies of evangelical doctrine could venture now to turn their victorious weapons against their associates in arms who espoused that doctrine, with whom they had achieved the common conquest, and from whose midst had sounded the most vigorous call to battle and to victory. luther, on the contrary, was not afraid at this moment to exhort the archbishop, cardinal albert, of whose friendly disposition to himself, his friend rühel had recently informed him, to follow the example of his cousin, the grand master in prussia, by converting his bishopric into a temporal princedom, and entering the state of matrimony, and to name, as the chief motive for so doing, the 'hateful and horrible rebellion,' wherewith god's wrath had visited the sins of the priesthood. thus did luther, in these stormy times, whatever might be thought of the violence of his utterances, take up his position clearly and resolutely from the first, and maintain it to the end;--sure of his cause, and safe against the new attack which he saw now the devil was making; unyielding and defiant towards his old papal enemies and their new calumniations. and in this frame of mind he took just now a step, calculated to sharpen all the tongues of slander, but one in which he saw the fulfilment of his calling. freed from unchristian monastic vows, he entered into the holy state of matrimony ordained by god. we first hear him speaking decidedly on this subject in a letter to rühel of may . after referring to the devil as the instigator of the insurgent peasants, and of the murderous deeds which made him anxious to prepare himself for death, he continues with the following remarkable words: 'and if i can, in spite of him, i will take my kate in marriage before i die. i hope they will not take from me my courage and my joy.' chapter vi. luther's marriage. our readers will recall to mind those words of luther at the wartburg, on hearing that his teaching was making the clergy marry and monks renounce the obligation of their vows. no wife, he declared, should be forced upon him. he remained in his convent; looked on quietly, as one friend and fellow-labourer after the other took advantage of their liberty; wished them happiness in the enjoyment of it, and advised others to do the same; but never changed his views about himself. his enemies reproached him with living a worldly life, with drinking beer in company with his friends, with playing the lute, and so on. nor was it merely his catholic opponents who sought in such charges material for vile slander, but also jealous ranters like münzer gave vent to their hatred in this manner. all the more remarkable it is that no slanderous reports of immoral conduct were ever launched at this time, even by his bitterest enemies, against the man who was denouncing so openly and sternly offences of that description among the superior, no less than the inferior, clergy. calumnies of this kind were reserved for the occasion of his marriage. in truth, his life was one of the most arduous labour, anxiety, and excitement; and as regards his bodily needs, he was satisfied with the plainest and most sparing diet and the simplest enjoyments. the augustinian convent, whence he received his support, being gradually denuded of its inmates by their abandonment of monastic life, its revenues accordingly were stopped. luther informed spalatin in of the poverty to which they were reduced; not indeed, as spalatin well knew, that he concerned himself much about it, or wished to make it a subject of complaint; if he had no meat or wine, he could live well enough on bread and water. melancthon describes how once, before his marriage, luther's bed had not been made for a whole year, and was mildewed with perspiration. 'i was tired out,' says luther, 'and worked myself nearly to death, so that i fell into the bed and knew nothing about it.' when, moreover, he exchanged, as we have seen, in the autumn of , the monastic cowl for the garb of a professor; and when he and the prior brisger were the only ones of all the former monks left in the convent, he remained quietly where he was, and never entertained the idea of marriage. a noble lady, argula von staufen, wife of the ritter von grumbach, formerly in the bavarian army, who had written publicly for the cause of the gospel, and thereby incurred, with her husband, the displeasure of the duke of bavaria, and who was now in active correspondence with the wittenbergers and spalatin, expressed to the latter her surprise that luther did not marry. luther thereupon wrote to spalatin on november , , saying, 'i am not surprised that folks gossip thus about me, as they gossip about many other things. but please thank the lady in my name, and tell her that i am in the hands of the lord, as a creature whose heart he can change and re-change, destroy or revive, at any hour or moment; but as my heart has hitherto been, and is now, it will never come to pass that i shall take a wife. not that i am insensible to my i flesh or sex, ... but because my mind is averse to wedlock, because i daily expect the death and the well-merited punishment of a heretic.' shortly afterwards luther wrote to his friend link: 'suddenly, and while i was occupied with far other thoughts, the lord has plunged me into marriage.' it was in the spring of that he had formed this resolve, which speedily ripened to its fulfilment. in a letter of march , , he complained to his friend amsdorf, who had gone to magdeburg, of depression of spirits and temptation, and besought him to pay him a friendly visit to cheer him. it was, as we see from the contents of the letter, a temptation, which caused luther to feel that, in the words of scripture, it was 'not good for man to be alone,' but that he ought to have a help-meet to be with him. as to the choice of such a help-meet he may have already talked with amsdorf, and very possibly they may have spoken of a lady of magdeburg of the family of alemann, who were conspicuous there for their devotion to the evangelical cause. but luther's own choice turned on catharine von bora, a former nun. sprung from an ancient, though poor family of noble blood, she had been brought up from childhood in the convent of nimtzch near grimma. we find her there as early as ; she was born on january , , and was consecrated as a nun at the age of sixteen. when the evangelical doctrine became known at nimtzch, catharine endeavoured with other nuns to break the bonds, which she had taken upon herself without any real free-will or knowledge of her own. in vain she entreated her relatives to release her. at length one leonhard koppe, a burgher and councillor of torgau, took her part. assisted by him and two of his friends, nine nuns escaped secretly from the convent on easter eve, april , . luther justified their escape in a public letter addressed to koppe, and collected funds for their support, until they could be further provided for. they fled first to wittenberg, and here catharine stayed at the house of the town clerk and future burgomaster, philip reichenbach. she was now in her twenty-sixth year, when luther turned his thoughts towards her. he told afterwards his friends and catharine herself, with perfect frankness, that he had not been in love with her before, for he had his suspicions, and they were not unfounded, that she was proud. he had even thought, shortly before, of arranging a marriage between her and a minister named glatz, who later on, however, proved himself unworthy of his office. catharine, on the other hand, is said to have gone to amsdorf, as the trusted friend of luther, and to have told him frankly that she did not wish to marry glatz, but was ready to form an honourable alliance with himself or with luther. if cranach's portrait of her is to be trusted, she was not remarkable for beauty or any outward attraction. but she was a healthy, strong, frank and true german woman. luther might reasonably expect to have in her a loyal, fresh-hearted, and staunch help-meet for his life, whose own cares or requirements would cause him little anxiety, while she would be just such a companion as, with his physical ailments and mental troubles, he required. in the event of her haughty disposition asserting itself unduly, he was the very man to correct it with quiet firmness and affection. what further considerations induced him to marry, appear from his letters, in which he urged his friends to do likewise. thus he wrote on march to wolfgang reissenbusch, preceptor of the convent at lichtenberg, saying that man was created by god for marriage. god had so made man that he could not well do without it; whoever was ashamed of marrying, must also be ashamed of his manhood, or must pretend to be wiser than god. the devil had slandered the married state by letting people who lived in immorality be held in high honour. luther, in thus frankly stating the natural disposition of man to married life, spoke from his own experience. 'to remain righteous unmarried,' he said once later on, 'is not the least of trials, as those know well who have made the attempt.' in referring as he did to the devil, he probably had in his mind the scandal which threatened him if he should decide on marrying. he then goes on to say to reissenbusch that if he honoured the word and work of god, the scandal would be only a matter of a moment, to be followed by years of honour. to spalatin he writes on april : 'i find so many reasons for urging others to marry, that i shall soon be brought to it myself, notwithstanding that enemies never cease to condemn the married state, and our little wiseacres ridicule it every day.' the 'wiseacres' he was thinking of were professors and theologians of his circle at wittenberg. not only was he resolved, however, to obey the will of his creator, despite all condemnation and ridicule, but he deemed it his duty to testify to the rightness of the step by his example as well as by his words. his enemies, in fact, were taunting him that he did not venture to practise himself what he preached to others. a few days after, immediately before his departure for eisleben, he wrote again to spalatin, recommending his friend, who had been so utterly averse to matrimony, to take care that he was not anticipated in the step. amidst all the terrors of the peasants' war, which had now broken out in all its violence, and in earnest contemplation of a near end possibly threatening himself, he had formed the fixed resolve, as his letter of may to rühel shows, to 'take his kate to wife, in spite of the devil.' this is the first letter in which he mentions her name to a friend. and to this resolve he steadily adhered during the troublous weeks that followed, when he was called on to pay the last honours to his elector, to rouse men to the sanguinary contest with the peasants, and to hear contumely and reproach heaped upon his stirring words. besides writing to the cardinal albert himself, recommending him to marry, he sent a letter also on june to his friend rühel, who held office as one of his advisers, saying, 'if my marrying might serve in any way to strengthen his grace to do the same, i should be very willing to set his grace the example; for i have a mind, before leaving this world, to enter the married state, to which i believe god has called me.' he had thoughts of this kind, he added, even if it should end only in a betrothal, and not an actual marriage. he speedily gave effect to his final resolve, in order to cut short all the loose and idle gossip which threatened him as soon as his intentions were known with regard to catharine von bora. he took none of his friends into his confidence, but acted, as he afterwards advised others to act. 'it is not good,' he said, 'to talk much about such matters. a man must ask god for counsel, and pray, and then act accordingly.' as to how he finally came to terms with catharine we have no account to show. but on the evening of june , on the tuesday after the feast of the trinity, he invited to his house his friends bugenhagen, the parish priest of the town, jonas, the professor and provost of the church of all saints, lucas cranach with his wife, and the juristic professor apel, formerly a dean of the cathedral at bamberg, who himself had married a nun, and in their presence was married to catharine. the marriage was solemnised in the customary way. the pair were asked, by the priest present, bugenhagen, according to the custom prevailing in germany, and which luther afterwards followed in his tract on marriage, whether they would take one another for husband and wife; their right hands were then joined together, and thus, in the name of the trinity, they were 'joined together in matrimony.' the ceremony was therewith concluded, and catharine remained thenceforth with luther as his wife. some days after luther gave a little breakfast to his friends; and the magistracy, of whom cranach was a member, sent him their congratulations, together with a present of wine. a fortnight later, on june , luther celebrated his wedding in grander style, by a nuptial feast, in order to gather his distant friends around him. he wrote to them saying that they were to 'seal and ratify' his marriage, and 'help to pronounce the benediction.' above all he rejoiced to be able to see his 'dear father and mother' at the feast. among the motives for his marrying he especially mentioned that he had felt himself bound to fulfil an old duty, in accordance with his father's wishes. great as was the surprise which luther occasioned by his speedy marriage, it was no greater than the talk and sensation that immediately ensued. among even his adherents and friends--especially the 'wiseacres' of whom he had spoken--there was much astonishment and shaking of heads. it was considered that the great man had lowered himself, and gossip was busy in asking what reasons could have induced him to take the step. melancthon, his devoted friend, lost for the moment, as is shown by his letter of june to the philologist camerarius, his accustomed self-possession. he admitted that married life was a holy state, and one well-pleasing to god, and that its results might be beneficial to luther's nature and character; but he was of opinion that luther's lowering himself to this condition was a lamentable act of weakness, and injurious to his reputation--and that, too, at a time when germany was more than ever in need of all his spirit and his energy. luther had not invited him to be present on the th, from a suspicion that melancthon would scarcely approve of what he was doing. a few days afterwards, however, he warmly besought link, their common friend, to be sure and attend their nuptial feast on the th. that luther, in this respect also, had acted as a man of strong character and determination, would soon be evident to them all. his enemies seized the occasion of his marriage to spread vulgar falsehoods about him, which soon were further exaggerated, and have been raked up shamelessly again, even in our own time, or at least repeated in veiled and scandalous inuendoes. [illustration: fig. .--luther. (from a portrait by cranach in .) at wittenberg.] as for luther himself, he at first felt strange in the new mode of life which he had entered at the age of forty-one, so suddenly, and in the midst of his arduous labours, and the stirring public events and struggles of the time. at the same time he could not but be aware of the unfavourable reception which his step would encounter, even with his friends at wittenberg. melancthon found him, during the early days of his married life, in a restless and uncertain mood. but he remained firm in his conviction that god had called him to the married state. the same day that melancthon wrote so anxiously to camerarius about his marriage, luther himself wrote to spalatin, saying, 'i have made myself so vile and contemptible forsooth, that all the angels, i hope, will laugh, and all the devils weep.' in his letter of invitation to his friends for june , friendly humour is mingled with words of deep earnestness; nay, even with thoughts of death, and a longing for release from this infatuated world. later on luther preached, on the ground of his own experiences, about the blessings, the joys, and the purifying burdens of the state ordained and sanctified by god, and never without an expression of gratitude to god for having brought him to enter into it. seventeen years after his marriage he bore testimony to catharine in his will, that she had been to him a 'pious, faithful, and devoted wife, always loving, worthy, and beautiful.' [illustration: fig. .--catharine von bora, luther's wife. (from a portrait by cranach about .) at berlin.] of the wedding feast of june we have no further details. it was, so far as concerns the repast, a very simple one, as compared with the elaborate nuptial entertainments then in fashion. the university presented luther with a beautifully chased goblet of silver, bearing round its base the words: 'the honourable university of the electoral town of wittenberg presents this wedding gift to doctor martin luther and his wife kethe von bora. [footnote: the goblet is now in the possession of the university of greifswald.] [illustration: fig. l.--luther's ring from catharine.] apartments in the convent, which brisger also quitted shortly after to become a minister, were appointed by the elector as the dwelling-place of luther. here, therefore, catharine had to manage her household. [illustration: fig. .--luther's double ring.] protestant posterity has been anxious to retain a memorial of this marriage in the wedding rings of the newly-married couple. these, however, were probably not used at the marriage itself, since luther wished to have it solemnised so quickly and without the knowledge of others. but a ring has been preserved, which luther, to judge from the inscription (d. martino luthero catharina v. boren jun. ), received at any rate from his kate as a supplementary reminiscence of the day. in recent times--about --it has been multiplied by several copies. it bears the figure of the crucified saviour and the instruments of his death; in perfect keeping with the spirit of the reformer, whose marriage, like the other acts of his life, was concluded in the name of christ crucified. there exists also, in the ducal museum at brunswick, a double ring, consisting of two interfastened in the middle, of which one bears a diamond with his initials m. l. d., and the other a ruby with the initials of his wife, c. v. b. the inner surface of the first ring is engraved with the words: 'was. got. zusamen. fiegt,' (those whom god hath joined together), and the second, 'sol. kein. mensch. scheiden,' (shall no man put asunder). this double ring was probably given by some friend to luther, or, as others suppose, to his wife. part v. _luther and the reconstruction of the church, to the first religious peace_. - . chapter i. survey. the year marks in the life of luther and the history of the reformation an epoch and a departure of general importance. luther's preaching had originally forced its way among the german people and its various classes, with an energy and strength never counted on by its opponents. it seemed impossible to calculate how far the ferment would extend, and what would be its ultimate results. it was the idea of the elector frederick the wise, now dead, that by simply letting the word of the gospel unfold itself quietly and work its way without hindrance, the truth could not fail eventually to penetrate all christendom, or at least the christian world of germany, and thus accomplish a peaceful victory. this hope had guided him during his lifetime in his relations with luther, and no one appreciated and responded to it more loyally than luther himself. but now, as we have seen, those german princes who adhered to the old church system had begun to form a close alliance, and were meditating means of remedying, albeit in their own fashion, certain evils in the church. erasmus, still the representative of a powerful modern movement of the intellect, had at length broken finally with luther, and renewed his former allegiance to the romish church. from the german nobility, whose sympathy and co-operation luther had once so boldly and hopefully invoked in his contest with the papacy, it was vain, since the fatal enterprise of sickingen, which luther himself had been forced to condemn, to expect any material assistance in furtherance of the evangelical cause. true, there was the extensive rising of another class, the peasantry, who likewise appealed to the gospel. but genuine disciples of the gospel could not fail to see in this movement, with terror, how a perverse conception of the sacred text led to errors and crimes which even luther wished to see suppressed in blood. and the catholic nobles took advantage of this rising to persecute with the greater rigour all evangelical preaching, and to extend, without further inquiry, their denunciation of the insurgents to those of evangelical sympathies who held entirely aloof from the insurrection. luther, in his dealings with the nobles and peasants, failed to preserve that boldness and confidence of mind and language which he had previously displayed towards his fellow-countrymen. that his cause, indeed, was the cause of god, he remained unshakenly convinced; but in a sadder spirit than he had ever shown before, he left god's will to determine what amount of visible success that cause should attain to in the present evil world, or how far the decision should depend upon his last great judgment. [illustration: fig. .--the saxon electors, frederick the wise, john, and john frederick. (from a picture by cranach.) at nüremberg.] [illustration: fig. .--facsimile of frederick's signature.] even before the peasants' war broke out, the proceedings of the fanatics had begun to hamper and disturb his labours in the field of reformation, and had prepared for him much pain and tribulation. he had to grow distrustful of so many whom he had regarded as brothers, and of their manner of proclaiming the word of god, whom they pretended to serve. he already heard of men among them, who not only rejected infant baptism, and openly attacked his own, no less than the catholic doctrine of the sacrament, but who impugned the universal belief of christendom in the triune god and the divinity of the saviour. early in news reached him of such a man at nüremberg, john denk, the rector of the school there, who was expelled on that account by the magistrates. luther's own doctrine of the presence of christ's body in the lord's supper, which he had previously to defend against carlstadt, his former colleague and fellow-combatant, now found a far more formidable opponent in the zurich reformer, ulrich zwingli. the latter, in a letter of november , , to alber, a preacher at reutlingen, had already disputed the real presence, by interpreting the words 'this _is_ my body' to mean 'this _signifies_ my body.' in march he made known this interpretation to the world by publishing his letter, together with a pamphlet 'on the true and false religion.' he was joined at basle by oecolampadius, whom luther had welcomed formerly as a fellow-labourer, and who published his own interpretation of the words of christ. butzer and capito, the evangelical preachers at strasburg, inclined to the same view, which threatened to spread rapidly over the south of germany. the opposition now encountered by luther was far more dangerous for his teaching than the theories and agitations of a carlstadt, since whatever judgment may be formed about its merits, it proceeded at any rate from men of far more thoughtful minds, more solid theological acquirements, and more honest reverence for the word of god. herewith then began that division of opinion among the ranks of the evangelical reformers, which served more than anything else to retard the fresh and vigorous progress of the reformation, and infected even luther's spirit with the bitterness of the controversy it entailed. at the same time, however, luther had now won firm ground for the evangelical cause upon a fixed and extensive territory. within these limits it was possible to construct a new church system, upon stable foundations and with a new constitution. john, the new elector of saxony, did not enjoy, it is true, the same high consideration throughout the empire as his brother frederick, luther's great protector, and he was also his inferior as a statesman. but with luther himself both he and his son john frederick had already maintained a friendly personal intercourse, such as his predecessor had carefully avoided. nor did his disposition lead him, like frederick, to pay any such regard to the possible preservation of church unity in the german empire and western christendom; on the contrary, he soon showed his readiness to undertake independently, as sovereign of his country, the establishment of a new evangelical church. prussia had just preceded him in a reform embracing the whole country, under the former grand master of the teutonic knights, their present duke. the elector now found a further ally for the work in the landgrave philip of hesse, the most active and politically the most important of all. as a young man of only twenty years of age, in the beginning of , he had rendered valuable service by his energy, resolution, and warlike ability, in the defeat of sickingen, and again when opposed to the seditious peasants. already before the peasants' war commenced, he had acquired, mainly through melancthon, whom he had met when travelling, a knowledge and love of the evangelical doctrines. his father-in-law, duke george of saxony, had vainly endeavoured, after their common victory over the insurgents, to alienate him from the cause of the hateful luther, who he said was the author of so much mischief. but the menaces hurled against that cause by the catholic states of the empire served only to attach him more closely and loyally to john and john frederick, and thence resulted in the following spring the league of torgau, which was joined also by the princes of brunswick-lüneburg, anhalt, and mecklenburg, and the town of magdeburg. the co-operation of the territorial princes made it possible to procure for the reformation and its church system a firm position in the german empire against the emperor and the hostile catholic states. and, at the same time, it offered means for establishing on the ground newly occupied by the reformation itself, firm and generally recognised regulations of church polity, and defending them from being disturbed by the proceedings of fanatics. [illustration: fig. .--philip of hesse. (from a woodcut of brosamer.)] under these new conditions and circumstances, luther's work became limited, as was natural, to a narrower field, and bore no longer the same character of boldness and independence which had marked it in his original contest with rome. but it required, on this account, all the more perseverance and patience, faithfulness and circumspection in minor matters, and an adequate regard to what was actually required and practicable, while clinging firmly to the lofty aims and objects with which the work of the reformation had commenced. to the portrait of luther as the reformer we have to add henceforth that of the married man and head of the household, whose single desire is to fulfil, as a man and a christian, the duties belonging to this state of life, and to enjoy with a quiet conscience the blessings of god. in his letters to intimate friends we find happy home news alternating with the most profound and serious reflections on the conduct and duties of the evangelical church, and on abstruse questions of theology. his language as a reformer deals now no longer, as in his address to the german nobility, in particular, with the problems and interests of political and social life; it is mainly to religious and spiritual matters, and to the kindred questions affecting the active work and constitution of the church, that his mission is now directed. but his personal relations with his countrymen became all the more close and intimate in consequence of this change of life; and that which by many of his friends was regretted as a lowering of his reputation and influence, becomes a valuable and essential feature in the historical portrait now presented to our eyes. in single dramatic incidents and changes, so to speak, luther's life henceforth, as was only natural, is no longer so rich as during the earlier years of development and struggle. we shall no longer meet with crises of such a kind as mark a momentous epoch. chapter ii. continued labours and personal life to . among the particular labours which occupied luther during the further course of the year , apart from his persevering industry as a professor and preacher, we have already had occasion to mention one, namely, his reply to erasmus. we find him towards the end of september entirely engrossed in this work. not a single proposition in erasmus' book, so he wrote to spalatin, would he admit. the reckless severity with which he assailed that distinguished opponent appears all the more remarkable when contrasted with the conciliatory tone whereby he was then hoping to appease the wrath of his two bitterest enemies in high places, king henry viii. of england and duke george of saxony. on september , , he addressed a humble letter to henry. king christian ii. of denmark, who, after forfeiting his throne by his arbitrary and despotic rule, had taken refuge with the elector frederick, showed an inclination to favour the new doctrine, and even came in person to wittenberg. by him luther was induced to believe--for what reason it does not appear--that henry viii. had entirely changed his church principles; and to hope that, if only he could make amends for the personal offence he had given him, henry might be won over still further for the evangelical cause. luther refers to this hope as follows: 'my most gracious sire the king gave me good cause to hope for the king of england ... and ceased not to urge me by speech and letter, giving me so many good words, and telling me that i ought to write humbly, and that it would be useful to do so, and so forth, until i am fairly intoxicated with the idea.' he then cast himself in his letter at the feet of his majesty, and besought him to pardon him for the offence he had given by his earlier pamphlet, 'because from good witnesses he had learned that the royal treatise which he had attacked, was not indeed the work of the king himself, but a concoction of the miserable cardinal of york' (edward lee). he promised to make a public retractation, in another pamphlet, for the sake of the king's honour. at the same time, he wished that the grace of god might assist his majesty, and enable him to turn wholly to the gospel, and shut his ears against the siren voices of its enemies. with regard to duke george of saxony, all that luther had as yet heard about him was that he was incessantly bringing fresh complaints about him to the elector, that he rigorously excluded the new teaching from his own territory, and, what was more, that, he was anxious to go on from the conquest of the peasants to the suppression of lutheranism, which had been the cause, he declared, of all the mischief. now, however, luther learned from certain saxon nobles, that the duke himself was not so unfavourably disposed to the cause, and was willing to treat with mildness and toleration those who preached or confessed the gospel; that it was with luther personally that he was so offended and irritated. luther wrote to him on december of this year. 'i have been advised,' he says, 'once more to entreat your grace in this letter, with all humility and friendship, for it almost seems to me as if god, our lord, would soon take some of us from hence, and the fear is that duke george and luther may also have to go.' he then entreats, with all submission, his pardon for whatever wrong he had done the duke by writing or in speech; but of his doctrine he could, for conscience' sake, retract nothing. luther, however, did not humble himself to george as he had done to king henry, and his letter bears his characteristic sharpness of tone. he assured the duke, however, that, with all his former severity of language towards him, he was a better friend to him than all his sycophants and parasites, and that the duke had no need to pray to god against him. luther undoubtedly wrote the two letters, as he himself says of the one to henry, with a simple and honest heart. they show, indeed, how much genuine good-nature, and at the same time how strange an ignorance of the world and of men, was combined in him together with a passionate zeal for combat. george answered him at once with ferocity, and, as luther says, with the coarseness of a peasant. the prince, otherwise not ignoble, was so embittered by hatred against the heretic as to reproach him with the vulgarest motives of avarice, ambition, and the lust of the flesh. never had luther, even with his worst enemies, stooped to such personal slander. concerning the answer which came afterwards from king henry, as well as the reply of erasmus, we shall speak further on. meanwhile, luther and his friends were directing their attention to the newly published doctrine of the last supper. at first luther left others to contest it: bugenhagen addressed a public letter against it to his friend hess at breslau; brenz at schwäbish hall, together with other swabian preachers, published tracts against oecolampadius. luther himself, after february , referred repeatedly to zwingli's theory in sermons to the congregation at wittenberg which were printed at the time. but beyond this he confined himself to sending warnings by letter, on november , , and january , , to strasburg and reutlingen, whence he had been appealed to on the subject, against the false doctrines which had been put forward concerning the sacrament, and particularly against the fanatics. we shall follow later on the further course of the controversy. all these polemics, however, were only an adjunct to his positive labours and activity. his chief task now was to carry out the work he had begun in his own church. for this he could rely with certainty on the inward sympathy of the new elector, and he hastened to turn it actively to account as soon as possible, for the furtherance of his church objects. during his communications with the late elector frederick, spalatin had always acted as intermediary; but to john he addressed himself direct, and, whenever occasion offered, by word of mouth, and this at times with much urgency. spalatin was now the pastor of a parish, as had been his wish some time before. he was the successor at altenburg of link, who had removed to nüremberg, and he enjoyed the especial confidence of john. in his official capacity luther was, and always remained, before all things, a member of the university. he cherished at all times a lively appreciation of its importance to the cause of evangelical truth, the church, and the common welfare of society. he began by pleading on its behalf to the new elector, to remedy the defects and grievances which had crept in during the latter years of the old and ailing elector frederick. the requisite salary, in particular, was wanting for several of the professorships, and the customary lectures on many branches of study had been dropped. luther, as he himself afterwards told the elector in a tone of apology, had 'worried him sorely to put the university in order,' so much so that 'his urgency wellnigh surprised the elector, as though he had not much faith in his promises.' in september the necessary reforms at wittenberg were provided for by a commission specially appointed by the prince. the interest the latter took in theology made him double melancthon's salary, in order to attach him the more closely to the theological lectures, which originally were not part of his duty. luther next devoted all his energies towards the requirements of the new church system. at wittenberg, and from thence in other places, regulations for the performance of public worship had already been established, with the object of giving full and free expression to evangelical truth. the congregation had the word of god read aloud to them, and joined in the singing of german hymns. the portions of the liturgy, however, which were sung partly by the priests and partly by the choir, were still conducted in latin. luther now introduced a complete service in german, changing here and there the old form. to assist him in the musical alterations required, the elector sent him two musicians from torgau. with one of these in particular, john walter, luther worked with diligence, and continued afterwards on terms of friendly intercourse. he himself composed a few pieces for the work. of these, as of the earlier regulations at wittenberg, luther published a formal account. it appeared at the beginning of the next year ( ), under the title of 'the german mass and order of divine worship at wittenberg.' but he guarded himself in this publication, from the outset, against the new service being construed into a law of necessary obligation, or made a means of disquieting the conscience. in this matter, as in others, he wished above all things that regard should be paid to the weak and simple brethren--to those who had still to be trained and built up into christians. nay, he had meant it for a people among whom, as he said, many were not christians at all, but the majority stood and stared, for the mere sake of seeing something new, just as though a christian service were being performed among turks and heathens. the first question with these was how to attract them publicly to a confession of belief and christianity. he thought also, at this time, of another and, as he termed it, a true kind of evangelical service, for which, however, the people were not yet prepared. his idea in this was that all individuals who were christians in earnest, and were willing to confess the gospel, should enrol themselves by name, and meet together for prayer, for reading the word of god, for administering the sacraments, and exercising works of christian piety. for an assembly of this kind, and for their worship of god, he contemplated no elaborate form of liturgy, but, on the contrary, simply a 'short and proper' means of 'directing all in common to the word and prayer and charity,' and in addition thereto, a regular exercise of congregational discipline and a christian care of the poor, after the example of the apostles. but for the present, he said, he must resign this idea of a congregation simply from the want of proper persons to compose it. he would wait 'until christians were found sufficiently earnest about the word to offer themselves for the purpose, and adhere to it;' otherwise it might serve only to generate a 'spirit of faction,' if he attempted to carry it through by himself; for the germans, he said, were a wild people, and very difficult to deal with, unless extreme necessity compelled them. the elector, however, readily assented to this project, and purposed to propose it as a model for other churches in his dominions. at this point, however, a wider field of action opened out, the details of which could not be comprehended at a single glance, and which seemed to require a higher care, and the guidance and support of higher powers and authorities. in many places, nothing as yet, or at all events nothing of a stable and well-ordered kind, had been done towards a reconstruction of the church and the satisfaction of spiritual requirements in an evangelical sense. there was no collective church, and no ecclesiastical office existing by whose influence and authority reforms might have been made, and a new organisation established. this was a grievous state of need where, perhaps, the existing clergy and the majority or the flower of their congregations were already unanimous and decided in their confession of evangelical doctrine. and in a number of congregations, indeed, among the great mass of the country people, there prevailed to a peculiar degree, that want of understanding, of ripe thought, and of inward sympathy, which luther noticed even among many of his wittenbergers. the bishops, in their visitations in saxony under the elector frederick, had been unable to check any longer the progress of the new teaching, and did not venture on any further interference. and yet this teaching, as luther knew better than anyone, had not yet succeeded, in spite of all its popularity, in penetrating the souls of men. to a large extent, the masses seemed to be still stolid and indifferent. even among the clergy, many were so unstable, so obscure, and so incompetent, that they failed to make any progress with their congregations. there were even some among them who were ready, according to circumstances, to adopt either the old or the new church usages. in some places the new practices were opposed as innovations, especially by various nobles, and by the priests, who were dependent on the nobles: if such opposition was to be broken, it could only be done by the authority and power of the local sovereign. lastly, and apart from all this, the new church system was threatened with imminent disturbance and dissolution from the insufficiency or misuse of the funds required for its support. the customary revenues were falling off; payments were no longer made for private masses; and many of the nobles, including even those who remained attached to the old system, began to secularise the property of the church. 'unless measures are taken,' said luther, 'to secure a suitable disposition and proper maintenance for ministers and preachers, there will shortly be neither parsonages nor schools worth speaking of, and divine worship and the word of god will come utterly to an end.' the first question was to establish the principles on which a new organisation of the church should be based. the earlier opinions expressed by luther, especially in his address to the german nobility, might have led one to expect that the new church system conformably to his ideas would have to be built up, to use a modern expression, from below, that is to say, on the basis of the universal priesthood of all baptized christians, who should now therefore, after hearing and receiving the word of the gospel, have proceeded to organise and embody themselves into a new community. luther had also, in that treatise, as we have seen, allotted certain duties to the civil authorities in regard even to ecclesiastical matters; and it was now from profound and painful conviction that he confessed that the great bulk of the people were as yet not genuine christians, but needed public means of attraction to draw them to christianity. later on we met with his idea of a 'german mass,' involving a voluntary union and assembly of genuine christians, as explained by him three years before in a sermon. there were elements here at least, one might have thought, sufficient to constitute an independent system of congregations. shortly afterwards, in october , a hessian synod, convoked by the landgrave philip at homberg, actually adopted the draft of a constitution, which provided that those christians who acknowledged the word of god should voluntarily enrol themselves as members of a christian evangelical brotherhood or congregation, who should elect in assembly their pastors and bishops, and that the latter, together with other deputies, should constitute a general synod for the national church. but luther, true to his conviction, previously expressed, that there were not the men fitted for such an institution, stated now his opinion to philip, that he had not the boldness to carry out such a heap of regulations, and that people were not as fit for them as those who sat and made the regulations imagined. moreover he could not tolerate the idea that the mass of those who remained outside this community, and who were looked upon, according to the homberg scheme, as heathens, should be left to their fate, without preachers of the word, and above all, without either baptism or the christian education of their children. added to this, he adhered strenuously to his belief, which we have noticed long before, that certain duties with reference to religion and the church were incumbent on the civil authorities, the princes and magistrates, in common with all the rest of christendom. it was their duty, he declared in those earlier writings of his, to prohibit, by force if necessary, the proceedings of those priests who were hostile to the gospel. he now applied the idea and definition of external, idolatrous practices to the papal system of public worship and the sacrifice of the mass. to suppress these practices, he said, was the duty of those authorities who watched over the external relations of life: such was his demand against the catholics at altenburg. on the other hand, this province of external life and external regulations embraced also the material means required for the external maintenance of the church. and it was only a step further for those authorities to forbid any public exposition of doctrines which they found to be at variance with the word of god, and to appoint also preachers of that word; nay, to undertake, in short, the establishment and preservation of the constitution of the church, so far as the same was external, and necessary, and incapable of being established by any other power. the elector john himself had already, on august , , announced at his palace of weimar to the assembled clergy of the district, 'that the gospel should be preached, pure and simple, without any additions by man.' under such circumstances, and starting with such views, luther now urged the elector to take in hand a comprehensive regulation of the church. as soon as he had discharged his duties at the university and completed his new church service in german, he turned his efforts to a general 'reform of parishes.' this, as he said in a letter at the end of september, was now the stumbling-block before him. on october , , the anniversary of his ninety-five theses, he represented to the elector that, now that the reorganisation of the university and the regulation of public worship had been completed, there still remained two points which demanded the attention and care of his highness, as the supreme temporal authority in his country. one of these was the miserable condition of the parishes in general; the other was the proposal that the elector, as luther had already advised him at wittenberg, should institute an inspection also of the civil administration of his councillors and officials, about which there were everywhere complaints both in the towns and country districts. with regard to the first point, he went on to explain, on receiving a gracious reply from the elector, that the people who wished to have an evangelical preacher should themselves be made to contribute the additional income required; and he proposed that the country should be divided into four or five districts, each of which should be visited by two commissioners appointed by the prince. he then proceeded to consider the external maintenance of the parochial clergy, and the means necessary for that purpose. he suggested further that ministers advanced in years, or unfit to preach, but otherwise of pious life and conduct, should be instructed to read aloud, in person or by deputy, the gospel, together with the postills or short homilies. with regard to those parishes where the appointment of an evangelical preacher was a matter of indifference or of actual repugnance, he expressed at present no opinion; but in his later proposals he assumed the establishment of evangelical preachers throughout the country. he expresses his conviction that the elector will give his services to god in these reforms of the church, as a faithful instrument in his hands, 'because,' as he says, 'your highness is entreated and demanded to do so by us, and by the pressing need itself, and, therefore, assuredly by god.' readily as the elector john listened to luther's words and exhortations, he found it difficult, nevertheless, to initiate at once so vast an undertaking as was imposed upon him. luther was well aware, as he himself told john, that matters of importance might easily be delayed at court, 'through the overwhelming press of business;' and that princely households had much to do, and it was necessary to importune them perseveringly. he knew his prince--that with the best will possible, he was not energetic enough with those about him; and among the latter he suspected that many were indifferent and selfish with regard to matters of religion and the church. the task, however, that now lay before him, was even more difficult and involved than luther himself had imagined when first shaping and propounding his idea. a whole year went by before the project was taken up comprehensively. only in the district of borna, in january , was an inspection of parishes effected by spalatin and a civil official of the prince; and another one was held during lent in the thuringian district of tenneberg, in which luther's friend myconius of gotha, afterwards one of the most prominent reformers in thuringia, took an active part. meantime, however, the clergy in general received directions from the elector to perform public worship in the manner prescribed by luther's 'german mass.' in the course of the summer the development of the general affairs of the empire enabled the desired co-operation of the civil authorities in the work of reformation to be established on a basis of law. and yet, just now, the situation, as regards the evangelical cause, had become more critical than at any previous time since the diet of worms. for the emperor charles had terminated, by a brilliant victory, the war with france, which had compelled him to let his edict remain dormant; and the peace concluded with the captured king francis, in january , at madrid, was designated by the two monarchs as being intended to enable them to take up their christian arms in common for the expulsion of the infidels and the extirpation the lutheran and other heresies. the emperor issued an admonition to certain princes of germany, bidding them take measures accordingly, and a number of them held a conference together on the subject. against the danger thus threatening, the evangelical party formed the league of torgau. but no sooner was king francis at liberty and back in france, than he broke the peace so solemnly contracted. pope clement, to whom this peace had offered such a splendid prospect of purifying and uniting christendom, set more store by his political interests and temporal possessions in italy, which formed a subject of such jealous rivalry and contention between himself, the emperor, and the king. terrified at the overwhelming power of the emperor, the holy father made use of his divine credentials to absolve the french king from his oath, and himself concluded a warlike alliance with him against charles, which went by the name of the 'holy league.' myconius remarked of this compact that 'whatever popes do must be called most holy, for so holy are they that even god, the gospel, and all the world, must lie at their feet.' meanwhile, the turks from the east were advancing on germany. thus it came to pass that a diet at spires, which seemed originally to have been summoned for the final execution of the edict of worms, led to the imperial recess of august , , wherein it was declared that until the general, or at least national council of the church, which was prayed for, should be convoked, each state should, in all matters appertaining to the edict of worms, 'so live, rule, and bear itself as it thought it could answer it to god and the emperor.' luther now turned again, on november , , to john, 'not having laid for a long while any supplication before his electoral highness.' the peasants, he said, were so unruly, and so ungrateful for the word of god, that he had almost a mind to let them go on living like pigs, without a preacher, only their poor young children, at any rate, must be cared for. he laid down in this letter some important principles concerning the duty of the civil power and the state. the prince, he declared, was the supreme guardian of the young, and of all who required his protection. all towns and villages that could afford the means, should be compelled to keep schools and preachers, just as they were compelled to pay taxes for bridges, roads, and other local requirements. in support of this demand, he appealed to the direct command of god, and to the universal state of destitution prevailing. if that duty were neglected, the country would be full of vagrant savages. with regard to the convents and other religious foundations, he stated that, as soon as the papal yoke had been removed from the land, they would pass over to the prince as the supreme head; and it would then become his duty, however onerous, to regulate such matters, since no one else would have the power to do so. he particularly warned the elector not to allow the nobles to appropriate the property of the convents, 'as is talked of already, and as some of them are actually doing.' they were founded, he said, for the service of god: whatever was superfluous might be applied by the elector to the exigencies of the state or the relief of the poor. to his friends luther complained with grief and bitterness of some courtiers of the elector, who after having always shut their ears to religion and the gospel, were now chuckling over the rich spoils in prospect, and laughing at evangelical liberty. the work now commenced in real earnest. the elector had the necessary regulations prepared at wittenberg, at a conference between his chancellor brück, luther, and others. in february visitors were appointed, and among them was melancthon. they began their labours at once in the district to which wittenberg belonged, but of their proceedings here nothing further is known. in july the first visitation on a large scale took place in thuringia. just at this time, however, luther was overtaken by severe bodily suffering and also by troubles at home, while the visitation and the academical life at wittenberg had to experience an interruption. luther's first year of married life had been one of happiness. symptoms of a physical disorder, the stone, had appeared, however, even then, and in after years became extremely painful and dangerous. on june , , as he announced to his friend rühel, his 'dear kate brought him, by the great mercy of god, a little hans luther,'--her firstborn. with joy and thankfulness, as he says in another letter, they now reaped the fruit and blessings of married life, whereof the pope and his creatures were not worthy. amidst all his various labours in theology and for the church, and in preparing for the visitation, he took his share in the cares of his household, laid out the garden attached to his quarters at the convent, had a well made, and ordered seeds from nüremberg through his friend link, and radishes from erfurt. he wrote at the same time to link for tools for turning, which he wished to practise with his servant wolf or wolfgang sieberger, as the 'wittenberg barbarians' were too much behind in the art; and he was anxious, in case the world should no longer care to maintain him as a minister of the word, to learn how to gain a livelihood by his handiwork. early in january he was seized with a sudden rush of blood to the heart. it nearly proved fatal at the moment, but fortunately soon passed away. an attack of illness, accompanied by deep oppression and anxiety of mind, and the effects of which long remained, followed on july . on the morning of that day, being seized with anguish of the soul, he sent for his faithful friend and confessor bugenhagen, listened to his words of comfort from the bible, and with persevering prayer commended himself and his beloved ones to god. at bugenhagen's advice, he then went to a breakfast, to which the elector's hereditary marshal, hans löser, had invited him. he ate little at the meal, but was as cheerful as possible to his companions. after it was over, he sought to refresh himself with conversation with jonas in his garden, and invited him and his wife to spend the evening at his home. on their arrival, however, he complained of a rushing and singing noise, like the waves of the sea, in his left ear, and which afterwards shot through his head with intolerable pain, like a tremendous gust of wind. he wished to go to bed, but fainted away by the door of his bedroom, after calling aloud for water. cold water having been poured upon him, he revived. he began to pray aloud, and talked earnestly of spiritual things, although a short swoon came over him in the interval. the physician augustin schurf, who was called in, ordered his body, now quite cold, to be warmed. bugenhagen too was sent for again. luther thanked the lord for having vouchsafed to him the knowledge of his holy name; god's will be done, whether he would let him die, which would be a gain to himself, or allow him to live on still longer in the flesh, and work. he called his friends to witness that up to his end he was certain of having taught the truth according to the command of god. he assured his wife, with words of comfort, that in spite of all the gossip of the blind world she was his wife, and he exhorted her to rest solely on god's word. he then asked, 'where is my darling little hans?' the child smiled at his father, who commended him with his mother to the god who is the father of the fatherless and judges the cause of the widow. he pointed to some silver cups which had been given him, and which he wished to leave his wife. 'you know,' he added, 'we have nothing else.' after a profuse perspiration he grew better, and the next day he was able to get up to meals. he said afterwards that he thought he was dying, in the hands of his wife and his friends, but that the spiritual paroxysm which had preceded had been something far more difficult for him to bear. luther, after recovering from this attack, still complained of weakness in the head, and his inward oppression and spiritual anguish was renewed and became intensified. on august he told melancthon, who was then busy with his visitation in thuringia, that he had been tossed about for more than a week in the agonies of death and hell, and that his limbs still trembled in consequence. whilst he was still in this state of suffering, news came that the plague was approaching wittenberg, nay, had actually broken out in the town. it is well known how this fearful scourge had repeatedly raged in germany, and how ruinous it had been, from the panic which preceded and accompanied it. the university, from fear of the epidemic, was now removed to jena. luther resolved, however, together with bugenhagen, whom he was assisting as preacher, to remain loyally with the congregation, who now more than ever required his spiritual aid; although his elector wrote in person to him saying, 'we should for many reasons, as well as for your own good, be loth to see you separated from the university.... do us then the favour.' he wrote to a friend, 'we are not alone here; but christ, and your prayers, and the prayers of all the saints, together with the holy angels, are with us.' the plague had really broken out, though not with that violence which the universal panic would have led one to suppose. luther soon counted eighteen corpses, which were buried near his house at the elster gate. the epidemic advanced from the fishers' suburb into the centre of the town: here the first victim carried off by it, died almost in luther's arms--the wife of the burgomaster tilo denes. to his friends elsewhere luther sent comforting reports, and repressed all exaggerated accounts. his friend hess at breslau asked him 'if it was befitting a christian man to fly when death threatened him.' luther answered him in a public letter, setting forth the whole duty of christians in this respect. of the students, a few at any rate remained at wittenberg. for these he now began a new course of lectures. luther's spiritual sufferings continued to afflict him for several months, and until the close of the year. though he had known them, he said, from his youth, he could never have expected that they would prove so severe. he found them very similar to those attacks and struggles which he had had to endure in early life. the invasion of the plague, and the parting from all his intimate friends except bugenhagen, must have contributed to increase them. he was just now deeply shocked and agitated by the news of the death of a faithful companion in the faith, the bavarian minister leonard käser or kaiser, who was publicly burnt on august , , in the town of scherding. luther broke out, as he had done after henry of zütphen's martyrdom, into a lamentation of his own unworthiness compared with such heroes. he published an account of leonard and his end, which had been sent him by michael stiefel, adding a preface and conclusion of his own. about the same time he composed a consolatory tract for the evangelical congregation at halle-on-the-saale, whose minister winkler had been murdered in the previous april. in the autumn a new controversial treatise was published against him by erasmus, which he rightly described as a product of snakes; and he now stood in the midst of the contest between zwingli and oecolampadius. he exclaimed once in a letter to jonas, 'o that erasmus and the sacramentarians (zwingli and his friends) could only for a quarter of an hour know the misery of my heart. i am certain that they would then honestly be converted. now my enemies live, and are mighty, and heap sorrow on sorrow upon me, whom god has already crushed to the earth.' the pestilence soon reached his friends. the wife of the physician schurf, who was then living in the same house with him, was attacked by it, and only recovered slowly towards the beginning of november. at the parsonage the wife of the chaplain or deacon george rörer succumbed to it on november , whereupon luther took bugenhagen and his family from the panic-stricken house into his own dwelling. but soon after dangerous symptoms showed themselves with a friend, margaret mocha, who was then staying with luther's family, and she was actually ill unto death. his own wife was then near her confinement. luther was the more concerned about her, as rörer's wife, when in the same condition, had sickened and died. but frau luther remained, as he says, firm in the faith, and retained her health. finally, towards the end of october his little son hans fell ill, and for twelve whole days would not eat. when the anniversary of the ninety-five theses came round again, luther wrote to amsdorf telling him of these troubles and anxieties, and concluded with the words: 'so now there are struggles without and terror within.... it is a comfort which we must set against the malice of satan, that we have the word of god, whereby to save the souls of the faithful, even though the devil devour their bodies.... pray for us, that we may endure bravely the hand of the lord, and overcome the power and craft of the devil, whether it be through death or life. amen. wittenberg: all saints' day, the tenth anniversary of the death-blow to indulgences, in thankful remembrance whereof we are now drinking a toast.' [illustration: fig. .--luther. (from a portrait by cranach in , at berlin.)] a short time afterwards luther was able to send jonas somewhat better news about the sickness at home, though he was still sighing with deep inward oppression; 'i suffer,' he said, 'the wrath of god, because i have sinned in his sight. pope, emperor, princes, bishops, and all the world hate me, and, as if that were not enough, my brethren too (he means the sacramentarians) must needs afflict me. my sins, death, satan with all his angels--all rage unceasingly; and what could comfort me if christ were to forsake me, for whose sake they hate me? but he will never forsake the poor sinner.' then follow the words above quoted about erasmus and the sacramentarians. [illustration: fig. .--luther's wife. (from a portrait by cranach in , at berlin.)] towards the middle of december the plague gradually abated. luther writes from home on the tenth of that month: 'my little boy is well and happy again. schurf's wife has recovered, margaret has escaped death in a marvellous manner. we have offered up five pigs, which have died, on behalf of the sick.' and on his return home this day to dinner from his lecture, his wife was safely delivered of a little daughter, who received the name of elizabeth. to his own inward sufferings luther rose superior by the strengthening power of the conviction that even in these his lord and saviour was with him, and that god had sent them for his own good and that of others; that is to say, for his own discipline and humbling. he applied to himself the words of st. paul, 'as dying, and behold we live;' nay, he wished not to be freed of his burden, should his god and saviour be glorified thereby. luther's famous hymn, _ein' feste burg ist unser gott_, appeared for the first time, as has been recently proved, in a little hymn-book, about the beginning of the following year. we can see in it indeed a proof how anxious was that time for luther. it corresponds with his words, already quoted, on the anniversary of the reformation. with the cessation of the pestilence and the return of his friends, the new year seems to have brought him also a salutary change in his physical condition; for his sufferings, which were caused by impeded circulation, became sensibly diminished. since the outbreak, and during the continuance of the plague, the work of church visitation had been suspended. melancthon, however, who had followed the university to jena, was commissioned meanwhile to prepare provisionally some regulations and instructions for further action in this matter, and in august luther received the articles which he had drafted for his examination and approval. these articles or instructions comprised the fundamental principles of evangelical doctrine, as they were henceforth to be accepted by the congregations. they were drawn up with especial regard to the 'rough common man,' who too often seemed deficient in the first rudiments of christian faith and life, and with regard also to many of those confessing the new teaching, who, as melancthon perceived, were not unfairly accused of allowing the word of saving faith to be made a 'cloak of maliciousness,' and who filled their sermons rather with attacks against the pope than with words of edifying purport. melancthon said on this point, 'those who fancy they have conquered the pope, have not really conquered the pope.' and whilst teaching that those who were troubled about their sins had only to have faith in their forgiveness for the merits of christ, to be justified in the sight of god and to find comfort and peace, nevertheless, he would have the people earnestly and specially reminded that this faith could not exist without true repentance and the fear of god; that such comfort could only be felt where such fear was present, and that to achieve this end god's law, with its demands and threats of punishment, would effectually operate upon the soul. luther himself had taught very explicitly, and in accordance with his own experience of life, that the faith which saves through god's joyful message of grace could only arise in a heart already bowed and humbled by the law of god, and, having arisen, was bound to employ itself actively in fruits of repentance; although, in stating this doctrine, he had not perhaps so equally adjusted the conditions, as melancthon had here done. an outcry, however, now arose from among the romanists, that melancthon no longer ventured to uphold the lutheran doctrine; of course it suited their interests to fling a stone in this manner at luther and his teaching. but what was far more important, an attack was raised against melancthon from the circle of his immediate friends. agricola of eisleben, for instance, would not hear of a repentance growing out of such impressions produced by the law and the fear of punishment. the conversion of the sinner, he declared, must proceed solely and entirely from the comforting knowledge of god's love and grace, as revealed in his message to man: thence, further, and thence alone, came the proper fear of god, a fear, not of his punishment, but of himself. this distinction he had failed to find in melancthon's instructions. it was the first time that a dogmatic dispute threatened to break out among those who had hitherto stood really united on the common ground of lutheran doctrine. luther, on the contrary, approved melancthon's draft, and found little to alter in it. what his opponents said did not disturb him; he quieted the doubts of the elector on that score. whoever undertook anything in god's cause, he said, must leave the devil his tongue to babble and tell lies against it. he was particularly pleased that melancthon had 'set forth all in such a simple manner for the common people.' fine distinctions and niceties of doctrine were out of place in such a work. even agricola, who wished to be more lutheran than luther himself, was silenced. melancthon's work, after having been subjected by the elector to full scrutiny and criticism in several quarters, was published by his command in march , with a preface written by luther, as 'instructions of the visitors to the parish priests in the electorate of saxony.' in this preface luther pointed out how important and necessary for the church was such a supervision and visitation. he explained, as the reason why the elector undertook this office and sent out visitors, that since the bishops and archbishops had proved faithless to their duty, no one else had been found whose special business it was, or who had any orders to attend to such matters. accordingly, the local sovereign, as the temporal authority ordained by god, had been requested to render this service to the gospel, out of christian charity, since, in his capacity as civil ruler, he was under no obligation to do so. in like manner, luther afterwards described the evangelical sovereigns as 'makeshift-bishops' (_nothbischöfe_). at the same time the instructions for visitation introduced now in the smaller districts the office of superintendent as one of permanent supervision. in the course of the summer preparations were made for a visitation on a large scale, embracing the whole country. the original intention had been to deal, by means of one commission, with the various districts in rotation. such a course would have necessarily entailed, as was admitted, much delay and other inconveniences. a more comprehensive method was accordingly adopted, of letting different commissions work simultaneously in the different districts. each of these commissions consisted of a theologian and a few laymen, jurists, and councillors of state, or other officials. luther was appointed head of the commission for the electoral district. the work was commenced earlier in some districts than in others. luther's commission was the first to begin, on october , and apparently in the diocese of wittenberg. luther had already, since may , voluntarily undertaken a new and onerous labour. bugenhagen had left wittenberg that day for the town of brunswick, where, at the desire of the local magistracy, he carried out the work of reform in the church, until his departure in october for the same purpose to hamburg, where he remained until the following june. luther undertook his pastoral duties in his absence, and preached regularly three or four times in the week. nevertheless, he took his share also in the work of visitation; the district assigned to him did not take him very far away from wittenberg. he remained there, actively engaged in this work, during the following months, and with some few intervals, up to the spring. from the end of january he again suffered for some weeks from giddiness and a rushing noise in his head; he knew not whether it was exhaustion or the buffeting of satan, and entreated his friends for their prayers on his behalf, that he might continue steadfast in the faith. the shortcomings and requirements brought to light by the visitation corresponded to what luther had expected. in his own district the state of things was comparatively favourable; happily, a third of the parishes had the elector for their patron, and in the towns the magistrates had, to some extent at least, fulfilled their duties satisfactorily. the clergy, for the most part, were good enough for the slender demands with which, under existing circumstances, their parishioners had to be content. but things were worse in many other parts of the country. a gross example of the rude ignorance then prevailing, not only among the country people, but even among the clergy, was found in a village near torgau, where the old priest was hardly able to repeat the lord's prayer and the creed, but was in high reputation far and near as an exorcist, and did a brisk business in that line. priests had frequently to be ejected for gross immorality, drunkenness, irregular marriages, and such like offences; many of them had to be forbidden to keep beer-houses, and otherwise to practise worldly callings. on the other hand, we hear of scarcely any priests so addicted to the romish system as to put difficulties in the way of the visitors. poverty and destitution, so luther reports, were found everywhere. the worst feature was the primitive ignorance of the common people, not only in the country but partly also in the towns. we are told of one place where the peasants did not know a single prayer; and of another, where they refused to learn the lord's prayer, because it was too long. village schools were universally rare. the visitors had to be satisfied if the children were taught the lord's prayer, the creed, and the ten commandments by the clerk. a knowledge of these at least was required for admission to the communion. luther in the course of his visitations mixed freely with the people, in the practical, energetic, and hearty manner so peculiar to himself. for the clergy, who needed a model for their preaching, and for the congregations to whom their pastors, owing to their own incompetence, had to preach the sermons of others, nothing more suitable for this purpose could be offered than luther's church-postills. its use, where necessary, was recommended. it had shortly before been completed; that is to say, after luther in had finished the portion for the winter half-year, his friend roth, of zwickau, brought out in a complete edition of sermons for the sundays of the summer half-year, and all the feast-days and holidays, compiled from printed copies and manuscripts of detached sermons. the most urgent task, however, that luther now felt himself bound to perform, was the compilation of a catechism suitable for the people, and, above all, for the young. four years before, he had endeavoured to encourage friends to write one. his 'german mass' of said: 'the first thing wanted for german public worship is a rough, simple, good catechism;' and further on in that treatise he declared that he knew of no better way of imparting such christian instruction, than by means of the ten commandments, the creed, and the lord's prayer, for they summed up, briefly and simply, almost all that was necessary for a christian to know. he now took in hand at once, early in , and amidst all the business of the visitations, a larger work, which was intended to instruct the clergy how to understand and explain those three main articles of the faith, and also the doctrines of baptism and the lord's supper. this work is his so-called 'greater catechism,' originally entitled simply the 'german catechism.' shortly afterwards followed the 'little catechism,'--called also the 'enchiridion'--which contains in an abbreviated form, adapted to children and simple understandings, the contents of his larger work, set out here in the form of question and answer. 'i have been induced and compelled,' says luther in his introduction, 'to compress this catechism, or christian teaching, into this modest and simple form, by the wretched and lamentable state of spiritual destitution which i have recently in my visitations found to prevail among the people. god help me! how much misery have i seen! the common folk, especially the villagers, know absolutely nothing of christian doctrine, and alas, many of the parish priests are almost too ignorant or incapable to teach them!' he entreats therefore his brother clergymen to take pity on the people, to assist in bringing home the catechism to them, and more particularly to the young; and to this end, if no better way commended itself, to take these forms before them, and explain them word by word. for the use of the pastors, he added to this catechism a short tract on marriage, and in the second edition, which followed immediately after, he subjoined a reprint of his treatise on baptism, which he had published three years before. the catechism met the requirements of simple minds and of a christian's ordinary daily life, by providing also forms of prayer for rising, going to bed, and eating, and lastly a manual for households, with scriptural texts for all classes. this ends with the words-- let each his lesson learn to spell, and then his house will prosper well. to the clergy, in particular, luther addressed himself, that they might imbue the people in this manner with christian truth. but he wished also, as he said, to instruct every head of a household how to 'set forth that truth simply and clearly to his servants,' and teach them to pray, and to thank god for his blessings. the contents of the catechism were carefully confined to the highest, simplest, and thoroughly practical truths of christian teaching, without any trace or feature of polemics. in its composition, as for instance, in his exposition of the lord's prayer, and in his small prayers above mentioned, he availed himself of old materials. how excellently this catechism, with its originality and clearness, its depth and simplicity, responded to the wants not only of his own time, but of after generations, has been proved by its having remained in use for centuries, and amid so many different ranks of life and such various degrees of culture. except his translation of the bible, this little book of luther is the most important and practically useful legacy which he has bequeathed to his people. the visitations were over when the two catechisms appeared, although they had not yet been held in all the parishes. events of another kind and dangers threatening elsewhere now demanded the first attention of the elector and the reformers. chapter iii. erasmus and henry viii.--controversy with zwingli and his followers, up to . luther's controversy with erasmus, the most important of the champions of catholic churchdom, had terminated, it will be remembered, so far as luther was concerned, with his treatise 'on the bondage of the will.' to the new tract which erasmus published against him, in two parts, in and , and which, though insignificant in substance, was violent and insulting enough in tone, luther made no reply. erasmus, nevertheless, to the pleasure of himself and his patrons in high places, continued his virulent attacks on the reformation, which was bringing ruin, he declared, on the noble arts and letters, and carrying anarchy into the church, while he himself, in his own mediating manner, and in the sense and with the help of the temporal rulers, was doing his best to promote certain reforms in the church, within the pale of the ancient system, and on its proper hierarchical basis. on what principles, however, that basis was established, and the divine rights of the hierarchy reposed, he wisely abstained, now as he had done before, from explaining. in luther's eyes he was merely a refined epicurean, who had inward doubts about religion and christianity, and treated both with disdain. luther's letter to henry viii., which we have noticed in an earlier chapter, took a long time before it reached the king, and before the latter could send an answer to it. the writing of that answer must have given his royal adversary much satisfaction; it turned out a good deal coarser than even the one from duke george; luther's marriage in particular afforded henry an occasion for insulting language. emser published it in german early in , adding some vituperations and falsehoods of his own. luther's only object in replying was to dissipate any impression that he had ever declared to henry his readiness to recant. his reply consisted of a few but powerfully written pages. he pointed out that in his letter he had expressly excepted his doctrines from any offer of retractation; upon these doctrines he took his stand, let kings and the devil do their worst. beyond these he had nothing which so encouraged his heart, and gave him such strength and joy. to the personal insults and imputations of sensuality and so forth, which henry viii., this man of unbridled passions, had poured upon him, he replied that he was well aware that, in regard to his personal life, he was a poor sinner, and that he was glad his enemies were all saints and angels. he added, however, that though he knew himself to be a sinner before god and his dear christian brethren, he wished at the same time to be virtuous before the world, and that virtuous he was--so much so that his enemies were not worthy to unloose the latchet of his shoes. with regard to his letter to henry he acknowledged that in this, as in his letter to duke george, and others, he had been tempted to make a foolish trial of humility. 'i am a fool, and remain a fool, for putting faith so lightly in others.' luther reverts in this reply to enemies of a different sort, who make his heart still heavier. these are to him his 'tender children,' his 'little brothers,' his 'golden little friends, the spirits of faction and the fanatics,' who would not have known anything worth knowing either of christ or of the gospel, if luther had not previously written about it. he alluded, in particular, to the new 'sacramentarians,' and to zwingli their leader. although this is the first time that zwingli makes his appearance in the history of luther, and was never treated by him otherwise than as a new offshoot of fanaticism, it is important, in order to understand and appreciate him aright, to bear in mind the fact that, himself only a few months younger than luther, he had been working since among the community at zurich as an independent and progressive evangelical reformer, and had extended his active influence over switzerland, however little noticed he had been at wittenberg. his career hitherto had been made easier for him than was the case with luther. the grand council of the city of zurich not only afforded him their protection, but in decreed full liberty to preach the gospels and epistles of the apostles in the sense he ascribed to them, and in formally declared their acceptance of his doctrines, and abolished all idolatrous practices. no recess of a diet was here to disturb or threaten him. the pope, for political reasons, behaved with unwonted caution and discretion: he delayed in this case for several years the ban of excommunication which he had pronounced so readily against luther. even hadrian, the man of firm character, to whom luther was an object of abhorrence, had only gracious and insinuating words for the zurich reformer. the zurich authorities, at the same time, acting in concert with zwingli, adopted severe measures against any intrusion of fanatics and anabaptists, nor did the entire population of the small republic contain any great number of persons so thoroughly neglected, and so difficult of influence by preachers, as was the case with the country people in germany. well might zwingli press forward with a lighter heart than luther's in his work. [illustration: fig. .--zwingli. (from an old engraving.)] personally, moreover, he had never passed through such severe inward struggles as luther, nor had ever wrestled with such spiritual anguish and distress. the thought of reconciliation with god, and the comforting of conscience by the assurance of his forgiving mercy, were not with zwingli, as with luther, the centre and focus of his aspirations and religious interests. he knew not that fervour and intenseness which made luther grasp at every means for bringing home god's grace to congregations of believers, or to each individual christian according to his spiritual need. his view, from the very first, extended rather to the totality of religious truth, as revealed by god in scripture, but sadly disfigured in the creeds of the church by man's additions and misinterpretations; and he aimed, far more than luther, at a reconstruction of moral, and especially of communal life, in conformity with what the word of god appeared to demand. it was easier for him, therefore, to break with the past: critical scruples against tradition did not weigh so heavily on his conscience. his critical faculties, no doubt, were sharpened by the humanistic culture he had acquired. compared with luther's peculiar meditative mood, and his half-choleric, half-melancholic temperament, zwingli evinced, in all his conduct and demeanour, a more clear and sober intelligence, and a far calmer and more easy disposition. his practical policy and conduct was allied with a tendency to judicial severity, in contrast to the free spirit which animated luther. so rigorous and narrow-minded was his zeal against the toleration of images, that the wittenberg theologians could not help detecting in him a spirit akin to that of carlstadt and the other fanatics. in renouncing the catholic doctrine of transubstantiation and the idea of a sacrifice, zwingli had rejected altogether the supposition of a real presence of christ's body at the sacrament; nay, as he declared later on, he had never truly believed in it. he quoted the words of christ, 'the flesh profiteth nothing' (st. john vi. ). he would understand by the sacrament simply a spiritual feeding of the faithful, who, by the word of god and his spirit, are enabled to enjoy in faith the salvation purchased by the death of christ. he saw no particular necessity for offering this salvation to them by an administration of christ's body, which had been given for them, through the visible medium of the bread; nor did he see how by so doing their faith could be strengthened. in luther's view the practical significance of the real presence lay in this, that in this special manner the christian, who felt his need of salvation, was assured, and became a partaker, of forgiveness and communion with his saviour. with zwingli, such a visible communication of the divine gift of salvation was opposed to his conception of god and the divine nature; just as this conception was opposed to that kind of union of the divine and human nature in christ himself, by virtue of which, according to luther, christ was able and willing to be actually present everywhere in the sacrament with his human, transfigured body. inasmuch, said zwingli, as this spiritual feeding took place in faith everywhere, and not only at the sacrament, it was no essential part of the sacrament; the real essence whereof consisted in this, that the faithful here confessed by that act their common belief in the commemoration of christ's death, and, as members of his body, pledged themselves to such belief: he called the sacrament the symbol of a pledge. luther himself, as we have seen, had taught from the first that the sacrament or communion should represent the union of christians with the spiritual body, or their communion of the spirit, of faith, and of love. but with him this communion was a secondary condition; it was the feeding on the body of christ himself which was to promote such communion with one another and, above all, with christ. zwingli explained the word 'is' of our lord, in his institution of the sacrament, to mean 'signifies.' oecolampadius preferred the explanation that the bread was not the body in the proper sense of the word, but a symbol of the body. in point of fact, this was a distinction without a difference. such, briefly stated, was the doctrinal controversy in which the two reformers, the german and the swiss, now engaged, and which had first brought them into contact. about the same time luther made the acquaintance of another opponent of his doctrine of the lord's supper, the silesian kaspar schwenkfeld. he also, like his friend valentin krautwald, denied the real presence; but sought to interpret the words of institution in yet another manner, connecting with his theory of their meaning deeper mystical ideas of the means of salvation in general, which at least in some quarters and to a small extent, have still survived. in all of them, however--in carlstadt, zwingli, schwenkfeld, and the rest--luther, as he wrote to his friends at reutlingen, perceived only one and the same puffed up, carnal mind, twisting about and struggling, to avoid having to remain subject to the word of god. his first public declaration against zwingli's new doctrine was in , in his preface to the syngramma or treatise of the fourteen swabian ministers, written, as his opening words express it, 'against the new fanatics, who put forth novel dreams about the sacrament, and confuse the world.' blow upon blow followed in the battle thus commenced. while oecolampadius was busy composing a reply to the treatise and its preface, by which he in particular had been assailed, luther proceeded to follow up the attack. the same year he published a 'sermon on the sacrament of the body and blood of christ, against the fanatics;' and in the following spring a larger work with the title 'a proof that christ's words of institution, "this is my body," &c., still stand, against the fanatics.' he concludes the latter with the wish, 'god grant that they may be converted to the truth; if not, that they may twist cords of vanity wherewith to catch themselves, and fall into my hands.' just then, however, zwingli had written against him, and to him, and the missive arrived at the moment when he had issued the last-named work. zwingli wrote in latin, entitling his tract, 'a friendly exposition of the matter concerning the sacrament,' and sent it with a letter to luther. these were followed almost immediately by a reply, in german, to luther's sermon, under the title of 'a friendly criticism of the sermon of the excellent martin luther against the fanatics.' zwingli had scarcely had luther's last written work in his hands when he replied to it in a new treatise: 'a proof that christ's words, "this is my body which is given for you," will for all ages retain the ancient and only meaning, and that martin luther in his last book has neither taught nor proved his own and the pope's meaning;' the title thus indicating that luther's and the pope's meaning were one and the same. oecolampadius at the same time published 'a fair reply' to luther's work. these were the writings of the sacramentarians which reached luther during the troublous time of the plague at wittenberg, and filled him with the pain of which we heard him then complain. zwingli's doctrine, from the time of its first announcement, had seemed to luther nothing but a visionary--nay, 'devilish' perversion of the truth and the word of god. the progress of the controversy, so far from healing the difference between them, tended only to sharpen and intensify it. from the first hour the two reformers met in opposition, the gulf was already fixed which henceforth divided evangelical protestantism into two separate confessions and church communities. this is not the place to pass judgment on the matter in controversy, or to trace minutely the leading points of dogma involved in the dispute. regarding it, however, by the light of history, it must be acknowledged and avowed that this was no mere passionate quarrel about words alone or propositions of dogmatic and metaphysical interest, but devoid of any religious importance. even in the attempts to establish points of detail, reference was constantly made, on both sides, to deep questions and views of christian religion. not only did zwingli and oecolampadius, in their anti-literal and figurative interpretation of the words of institution, endeavour to support it by scriptural analogies, more or less appropriate, but in the practical objections they raised, which luther treated as over-curious subtleties of human reason, they were actuated in reality by motives of a religious character. in their view, a pure and reverential conception of god was inconsistent with the idea of such an offertory of divine gifts, consisting of material elements and for mere bodily nourishment. not indeed that luther, in accepting the words in their literal sense, had become a slave to the letter, in contradiction to the free and lofty spirit in which he had elsewhere accepted the contents of holy scripture. the question with him here was about a word of unique importance--a word used by christ on the threshold, so to speak, of his death for our redemption; and we have already remarked what value he attached to the actual bodily presence indicated by that word, as assuring and imparting salvation to those who partook at his table in faith. no analogies to the contrary, derived from other figurative expressions, would content him, though of course he never denied that such expressions could and did occur throughout the bible. the text, 'the flesh profiteth nothing,' on which zwingli primarily relied, luther understood as referring not to the flesh of christ, but to the carnal mind of man; though he was careful to declare that it was not the fleshly presence, as such, of our saviour which gave the sacrament its value and importance; nor must the feeding of the communicants be a mere bodily feeding, but that the word and promise of christ were there present, and that faith alone in that word and promise could make the feeding bring salvation. god's glory was therein exalted to the highest, that from his pitying love he made himself equal with the lowest. in the doctrine concerning the person of the redeemer, a point to which the controversy further led, the church had hitherto affirmed simply a union of the divine and human natures, each retaining the attributes and qualities peculiar to itself. luther wished to see in the man jesus, the divine nature, which stooped to share humanity, conceived and realised with deeper and more active fervour. as the son of god he died for us, and as the son of man he was exalted, with his body, to sit at the right hand of god, which is not limited to any place, and is at once nowhere and everywhere. it is true, luther does not proceed to explain how this body is still a human body, or indeed a body at all. zwingli, in keeping the two natures distinct, wished to preserve the sublimity of his god and the genuine humanity of the redeemer; but in so doing, he ended by making the two natures run parallel, so to speak, in a mere stiff, dogmatic formulary, and by an artificial interpretation and analysis of the words of scripture touching the one jesus, the son of god and man. the manner, however, in which this controversy was conducted on both sides betrays an utter failure on the part of either combatant to apprehend and do justice to the religious and christian motives, which, with all their antagonism, never ceased to animate the opposite party. luther's attitude towards zwingli we have already noticed. we have seen how his zeal, in particular, prompted him too often to see in the conduct of individual opponents simply and solely the dominating influence of that spirit, from which certain pernicious tendencies, according to his own convictions, proceeded and had to be combated. thus it was in this instance. it was all visionary nonsense, nay, sheer devilry, and be attacked it in language of proportionate violence. from zwingli a different attitude was to be expected, from the amicable titles of his treatises and the personal correspondence with luther which he himself invited. he adopted here for the most part, as in other matters, a calm and courteous tone, and exercised a power of self-restraint to which luther was a stranger. but with a lofty mien, though in the same tone, he rejected luther's propositions, as the fruit of ludicrous obstinacy and narrowness of mind, nay, as a retrograde step into popery. his letter, moreover, embittered the contest by importing into it extraneous matter of reproach, such as, in particular, luther's conduct in the peasants' war. luther had reason to say of him, 'he rages against me, and threatens me with the utmost moderation and modesty.' zwingli's later replies evince a straightforwardness we miss in the earlier ones, but they are marred by much rudeness and coarseness of language, and display throughout a lofty self-consciousness and a triumphant assurance of victory. luther, after reading the last-mentioned treatises of zwingli and oecolampadius, resolved to publish one answer more, the last; for satan, he said, must not be suffered to hinder him further in the prosecution of other and more important matters. at this time he was particularly anxious to complete his translation of the bible, being now hard at work with the books of the prophets. his answer to zwingli grew ultimately into the most exhaustive of all his contributions to the dispute. it appeared in march under the title of 'confession concerning the lord's supper.' he went over once more all the most important questions and arguments which had formed the subject of contention, expounded his ideas more fully on the person and presence of christ, and explained calmly and impressively the passages of scripture relating thereto. he concluded with a short summary of his own confession of christian faith, that men might know, both then and after his death, how carefully and diligently he had thought over everything, and that future teachers of error might not pretend that luther would have taught many things otherwise at another time and after further reflection. zwingli and oecolampadius hastened at once to prepare new pamphlets in reply, and to publish them with a dedication to the elector john and the landgrave philip. but luther adhered to his resolve. he let them have the last word, as he had done with erasmus. they had not contributed anything new to the dispute. while luther was writing his last treatise against the sacramentarians, he found himself obliged to issue a fresh protest against the anabaptists. this was a tract entitled 'on anabaptism; to two pastors.' but while denouncing these sectaries, he protested strongly against the manner in which the civil authorities were dealing with them, by the infliction of punishment and even death on account of their principles, even when no seditious conduct could be alleged against them. everyone, he said, should be allowed to believe what he liked. similarly he wrote to nüremberg shortly after, where as we have already mentioned, the new errors were spreading, saying that he could in no wise admit the right to execute false prophets or teachers; it was quite enough to expel them. luther in this distinguished himself above most of the men of the reformation. at zurich, while zwingli was accusing luther of cruelty, anabaptists were being drowned in public. the foreground is now occupied again by the struggle with catholicism--in other words, by the contest with the german princes who were hostile to the reformation, and with the emperor himself and the majority of the diet. chapter iv. church divisions in germany--war with the turks--the conference at marburg, . in the war against the pope and france an imperial army in had stormed and plundered borne. god, as luther said, had so ordained, that the emperor, who persecuted luther for the pope, had to destroy the pope for luther. but charles v. was not then in a position to break with the head of the church. in the treaty concluded with the pope in november, mention was again made of extirpating the lutheran heresy. and whilst in italy the war with france was still going on, the emperor in the spring of sent an ambassador to the german courts, to rouse fresh zeal for the church in this matter. but before the threatened danger actually reached the evangelical party, it was preceded by disquieting rumours and false alarms. in march a new diet was to assemble at ratisbon. luther heard in february of strange designs being meditated there by the papists. his wish was that charles's brother ferdinand might be detained in hungary, where he was occupied in fighting the turks and their _protégé,_ prince john zapolya of transylvania, and that the diet should be prevented from meeting. luther's adversaries, on the other hand, feared an unfavourable decision from the estates, and the emperor at length peremptorily forbade their meeting. just about this time, john pack, a steward of the chancery who had been dismissed by duke george of saxony, came to the landgrave philip and informed him of a league concluded with king ferdinand by the dukes of saxony and bavaria, the electors of mayence and brandenburg, and several bishops, to attack the evangelical princes. the electorate of saxony, where john was just then engaged in completing the re-organisation of the church, was to be partitioned among them, and hesse was to be allotted to duke george. john and philip quickly formed an offensive and defensive alliance, and called out their troops. the whole scheme, as was shortly proved beyond dispute, was an invention, and the pretended treaty a forgery, of pack, who had been paid a large sum for his revelations. luther himself had no doubt of the genuineness of the document, and persisted even afterwards in his belief. but while the landgrave, with his habitual vehemence, was impatient to strike quickly, before their enemies were prepared, both luther and the other wittenberg theologians did their utmost to restrain their sovereign from any act of violence. luther earnestly bade him remember the words: 'blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth' (st. matt. v. ),--'as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men' (rom. xii. ),--'those that take the sword, shall perish with the sword' (st. matt. xxvi. ). he warned them that 'one durst not paint the devil over one's door, nor ask him to stand godfather.' he feared a civil war among the princes, which would be worse than a rising of the peasants, and utterly ruinous to germany. philip accordingly stayed his hand, until the reply of his supposed enemies, from whom he demanded an explanation, puzzled him as to the meaning of pack's overtures. a private letter sent by luther to link, in which he spoke of george as a fool, and said he mistrusted his promises, led afterwards, on george's learning its contents, to a new and bitter quarrel between the two. the duke made a violent attack on luther in a pamphlet, which appeared early in , to which the latter replied with equal violence, denouncing the abuse of 'secret (_i.e._ private) and stolen letters.' george retorted in the same strain, and persuaded his cousin john, to whom he addressed a formal complaint, to prohibit luther from printing anything more against him without electoral permission;--a step which effectually silenced his opponent. on november , , the emperor summoned a diet to meet at spires on february of the following year, in order that decisive and energetic measures should be taken--as recommended once more by the pope--to secure the unity and sole supremacy of the catholic church. the chief subjects named for deliberation were, the armament against the turks, and the innovations in matters of religion. as regards the war against the turks, luther, who had previously let fall some occasional remarks about certain wholesome effects it would have in checking the designs of the papacy, let his voice be heard, notwithstanding, in summoning the whole nation to do battle against the fearful and horrible enemy, whom they had hitherto suffered so shamefully to oppress them. since the latter part of the summer of he had been engaged upon a pamphlet 'on the war against the turks,' the publication of which was accidentally delayed till march, when he was busy with his catechism. in this pamphlet he spoke to his fellow-germans, with the noblest fire and in the fulness of his strength, as a christian, a citizen, and a patriot, and with a clearness and decision derived from convictions and principles of his own. he had no wish to preach a new crusade; for the sword had nothing to do with religion, but only with bodily and temporal things. but he exhorted and encouraged the authority, whom god had entrusted with temporal power, to take up the sword against the all-devouring enemy, with sure trust in god and certain confidence in his mission. by the 'authority' he meant the emperor, in whom he recognised the head of germany. he it was who must fight against the turks; under his banner they must march, and upon that banner should be seen the command of god, which said 'protect the righteous, but punish the wicked.' 'but,' asked luther, 'how many are there who can read those words on the emperor's banner, or who seriously believe in them?' he complained that neither emperor nor princes properly believed that they were emperor and princes, and therefore thought little about the protection they owed to their subjects. further on he rebuked the princes for letting matters go on as if they had no concern in them, instead of advising and assisting the emperor with all the means in their power. he knew well the pride of some of the princes, who would like to see the emperor a nonentity and themselves the heroes and masters. rebellion, he said, was punished in the case of the peasants; but if rebellion were punished also among princes and nobles, he fancied there would be very few of them left. he feared that the turk would bring some such punishment upon them, and he prayed god to avert it. finally, he bade them remember not to buckle on their armour too loosely, and underrate their enemies, as germans were too prone to do. he warned them not to tempt god by inadequate preparation, and sacrifice the poor germans at the shambles, nor as soon as the victory was won to 'sit down again and carouse until the hour of need returned.' at spires, however, the whole zeal of the imperial commissaries and of the catholic estates was directed, not against the common enemy of germany and christendom, but to the internal affairs of the church. they succeeded in passing a resolution or article, declaring that those states which had held to the edict of worms should continue to impose its execution on their subjects; the other states should abstain at least from further innovations. the celebration of the mass was not to be obstructed, nor was anyone to be prevented from hearing it. the subjects of one state were never to be protected by another state against their own. by these means, not only was the reformation prevented from spreading farther, but it was cut off at a blow in those places where it had already been in full swing. by the decision respecting the mass, room was given for attempts to reinstate it on evangelical territory; by the other decision respecting the subjects of different states, power was given to the bishops of the german empire to coerce, if they chose, the local clergy, as their subordinates. further steps in the exercise of this power could easily be anticipated. this resolution of the majority was answered on april by the evangelical party with a formal protest, from which they received the name their descendants still bear--protestants. they insisted that the imperial recess unanimously agreed on at the first diet of spires in could only be altered by the unanimous consent of the states; and they declared 'that, even apart from that, in matters relating to the honour of god and the salvation of our souls, every man must stand alone before god and give account for himself.' in these matters, therefore, "they could not submit to the resolution of the majority." the majority, however, as well as ferdinand, the emperor's brother and representative, refused to admit their right of opposition. the minority must prepare to submit to coercion and the exercise of force. against this the elector and landgrave concluded, on april , a 'secret agreement' with the cities of nüremberg, strasburg, and ulm. the landgrave was eager that this alliance should be strengthened by the admission of zurich and the other evangelical towns in switzerland. and a similar proposal was made to him by zwingli, who, in connection with his ecclesiastical labours, was carrying on a bold and high policy, in striving to effect an alliance with the republic of venice and the king of france against the emperor, he certainly far overrated the importance of his town in the great affairs of the world, and placed a strangely naive confidence in the french monarch. luther, on the contrary, set his face as resolutely now as in the affair of pack, against any appeal to the sword in support of the gospel. he would have his friends rely on god and not on the wit of man; and, with regard to the last diet, he was quite content that god had not allowed their enemies to rage even more. he was willing even to trust to the emperor for relief; the evangelical party, he said, should represent to his majesty how their sole concern was for the gospel and for the removal of abuses which no one could deny to exist; how, at the same time, they had resisted the iconoclasts and other riotous fanatics, nay, how the suppression of the anabaptists and the peasants was pre-eminently due to them, and how they had been the first to bring to light and vindicate the rights and majesty of authority. a representation of this kind, he hoped, must surely have an influence on the emperor. he flatly rejected any alliance with those,--namely, the swiss,--who 'strive thus against god and the sacrament;' such an alliance would disgrace the gospel and draw down their sins upon their heads. this opinion, in which the other wittenberg theologians, and especially melancthon, concurred, determined that of the elector. the landgrave did his utmost to remove this obstacle to an alliance with the swiss. he urged a personal conference between the rival theologians on the question of the sacrament. luther and melancthon were strongly opposed to such a step, inasmuch as the course of the controversy hitherto had not revealed a single point which offered any hope of reconciliation or mutual approach. luther reminded him how, ten years before, the leipzig disputation served only to make bad worse. intrigues, moreover, were apprehended from the other side, lest the lutherans should be held up to odium as the enemies of unity and obstacles to an alliance, and the landgrave be alienated from them. melancthon, indeed, had brought with him from spires, where he had been staying with philip, a suspicion that the latter inclined to the zwinglians, and was right in his conjecture at least so far, that their doctrine did not appear to him nearly so questionable as to the wittenbergers. but the simple fear of consequences made luther unwilling and unable to refuse the landgrave's urgent invitation, backed as it was with the concurrence of the elector. he wrote to him on june , declaring his readiness to 'render him this useless service with all diligence,' and only entreated him to consider once more whether it would do more good than harm. the conference was to take place at the castle of marburg on michaelmas day ( ). luther's sentiments in the interval are expressed in a letter which he wrote on august to a distant friend, the pastor brismann at eiga. 'philip (melancthon) and myself,' he says, 'after many refusals and much vain resistance, have been at length compelled to give our consent, because of the landgrave's importunity; but i know not yet whether our going will come to anything. we have no hopes of any good result, but suspect artifice on all sides, that our enemies may be able to boast of having gained the victory.... i am pretty well in body, but inwardly weak, suffering like peter from want of faith; but the prayers of my brethren support me.... that youth of hesse is restless, and boiling over with projects.... thus everywhere we are threatened with more danger from our own people than from our enemies. satan rests not, in his bloodthirstiness, from the work of murder and bloodshed.' in the same letter luther tells of the panic caused by a new pestilence--the sweating sickness--which had appeared in germany and at wittenberg itself. it was a plague, known already many years before, which used to attack its victims with fever, sweat, thirst, intense pain and exhaustion, and snatch them off with fearful rapidity. luther knew well the danger of it when once it actually appeared. but he watched without terror the supposed symptoms of its appearance at wittenberg, and remarked that the sickness there was mainly caused by fright. on the th he told another friend how the night before he had awoke bathed in sweat, and tormented with anxious thoughts, so much so, that had he given way to them he might very likely have fallen ill like so many others. he named also several of his acquaintances, whom he had driven out of bed, when they lay there fancying themselves ill, and who were now laughing at their own fancies. the emperor, meanwhile, concluded a final treaty with the pope on june , and on august made peace with king francis. by this treaty of barcelona he pledged himself to provide a suitable antidote to the poisonous infection of the new opinions. by the peace of cambray he renewed the promise, given in the treaty of madrid, of a mutual cooperation of the two monarchs for the extirpation of heresy. at marburg the meeting now actually took place between the theological champions of that great religious movement which strove to set up the gospel against the domination of rome, and was therefore condemned by rome as heretical. it was now to be decided whether the anti-romanists could not become united among themselves; whether the two hostile parties in this movement could not, at least in face of the common danger, join to make a powerful united church. zwingli's political conduct, and the cheerful and submissive readiness with which he had complied with the landgrave's proposal, afforded ground for expecting that, while steadfastly adhering to his own doctrine, he would embrace such an alliance, notwithstanding their doctrinal differences. everything now really depended upon luther. zwingli and oecolampadius met the strasburg theologians, butzer and hedio, and jacob sturm, the leading citizen of that town, on september , at marburg. the next day they were joined by luther and melancthon, together with jonas and cruciger from wittenberg and myeonius from gotha; and afterwards came the preachers osiander from nüremberg, brenz from schwäbish hall, and stephen agricola from augsburg. the landgrave entertained them in a friendly and sumptuous manner at his castle. on october , the day after his arrival, luther was summoned by the landgrave to a private conference with oecolampadius, towards whom he had always felt more confidence, and whom he had greeted in a friendly manner when they met. melancthon, being of a calmer temperament, was left to confer with zwingli. as regards the main subject of the controversy, the question of the sacrament, no practical result was arrived at between the parties. but on certain other points, in which zwingli had been suspected by the wittenbergers, and in which he partly differed from them--for instance, concerning the church doctrine of the trinity in unity, and the godhead of christ, and the doctrine of original sin--he offered explanations to melancthon, the result of which was that the two came to an agreement. the general debate began on sunday, october , at six o'clock in the morning. the theologians assembled for that purpose in an apartment in the east wing of the castle, before the landgrave himself, and a number of nobles and guests of the court, including the exiled duke ulrich of würtemberg. out of deference to the audience, the language used was to be german. zwingli had wished, instead, that anyone who desired it might be admitted to hear, but that the discussion should be held in latin, which he could speak with greater fluency. the four theologians last mentioned, who were to conduct the debate, sat together at a table. luther, however, assumed the lead of his side; melancthon only put in a few remarks here and there. the landgrave's chancellor, feige, opened the proceedings with a formal address. luther at the outset requested that his opponents should first express their opinions upon other points of doctrine which seemed to him doubtful; but he waived this request on oecolampadius's replying that he was not aware that such doubts involved any contradiction to luther's doctrine, and on zwingli's appealing to his agreement recently effected with melancthon. all he himself had to do, said luther, was to declare publicly, that with regard to those doubts he disagreed entirely with certain expressions contained in their earlier writings. the chief question was then taken in hand. the arguments and counter-arguments, set forth by the combatants at various times in their writings, were now succinctly but exhaustively recapitulated. but they were neither strengthened further nor enlarged. the disputants were constrained to listen during this debate to the oral utterances of their opponents with more deference than they had done for the most part in their literary controversy, with its hasty and passionate expressions on each side. luther from the outset took his stand, as he had done before, on the simple words of institution, 'this is my body.' he had chalked them down before him on the table. his opponents, he maintained, ought to give to god the honour due to him, by believing his 'pure and unadorned word.' zwingli and oecolampadius, on the contrary, relied mainly, as heretofore, on the words of christ in the sixth chapter of st. john, where he evidently alluded to a spiritual feeding, and declared that 'the flesh profiteth nothing.' honour must be given to god, he said, by accepting from him this clear interpretation of his word. luther agreed with them, as previously, that jesus there spoke only of the spiritual partaking by the faithful, but maintained that in the sacrament he had, in his words of institution, superadded the offer of his body for the strengthening of faith and that these words were not useless or unmeaning, but of potent efficacy through the word of god. 'i would eat even crab-apples,' said luther, without asking why, if the lord put them before me, and said "take and eat."' he fired up when zwingli answered that the passage in st. john 'broke luther's neck,' the expression not being as familiar to him as to the swiss: the landgrave himself had to step in as a mediator and quiet them. in the afternoon luther's opponents proceeded to argue 'that christ could not be present with his body at the sacrament, because his body was in heaven, and the body, as such, was confined within circumscribed limits, and could only be present in one place at a time. luther then asked, with reference to the objection that christ was in heaven and at the right hand of god, why zwingli insisted on taking those words in such a nakedly literal sense. he declined to enter upon explanations as to the locality of the body, though he could well have disputed for a long time on that subject: for the omnipotence of god, he said, by virtue whereof that body was present everywhere at the sacrament, stood above all mathematics. of greater weight to him must have been the argument of zwingli, which at any rate had a christian and biblical aspect, that christ with his flesh became like his human brethren, while they again at the last day are to be fashioned like unto his glorified body, though incapable, nevertheless, of being in different places at the same time. luther rejected this argument, however, on the ground of the distinction he was careful to draw between the actual attributes which christ possessed in common with all christians, and those which he did not so possess at all, or possessed in a manner peculiar to himself, and exalting him far above mankind. for example, christ had no wife, as men have. the next day, sunday, luther preached the early morning sermon. he connected his remarks with the gospel for the day, and dwelt with freshness and power, but without any reference to the controversy then pending, on forgiveness of sin and justification by faith. the disputation, however, was resumed later on in the morning. the subject of discussion was still the presence of christ's body in the sacrament. luther persisted in refusing to regard that body as one involving the idea of limits: the body here was not local or circumscribed by bounds. the swiss, on the other hand, did not deny the possibility of a miracle, whereby god might permit a body to be in more than one place at the same time; but then they demanded proof that such a miracle was really; effected with the body of christ. luther again appealed to the words before him: 'this is my body.' he said: 'i cannot slur over the words of our lord. i cannot but acknowledge that the body of christ is there.' here zwingli quickly interrupted him with the remark that luther himself restricted christ's body to a place, for the adverb 'there' was an adverb of place. luther, however, refused to have his off-hand expression so interpreted, and again deprecated the mathematical argument. the same day, the second of the debate, zwingli and oecolampadius sought to fortify their theory by evidence adduced from christian antiquity. on some points at least they were able to appeal to augustine. but luther put a different construction on the passages they quoted, and refused altogether to accept him as an authority against scripture. that evening the disputation was concluded by each party protesting that their doctrine remained unrefuted by scripture, and leaving their opponents to the judgment of god, by whom they might still be converted. zwingli broke into tears. philip in vain endeavoured to bring the contending parties to a closer understanding. just then the news came that the fearful pestilence, the sweating sickness, had broken out in the town. all further proceedings were stopped at once, and everyone hurried away with his guests. the landgrave only hastily arranged that in regard to the points of christian belief in which it was doubtful how far the swiss agreed with the evangelical faith, a series of propositions should be drawn up by luther, and signed by the theologians on both sides. this was done on the monday. they are the fifteen 'articles of marburg.' they expressed unity in all other doctrines, and in the sacrament also, in so far as they declared that the sacrament of the altar is a sacrament of the true body and blood of christ, and that the 'spiritual eating' of that body is the primary condition required. the only point left in dispute was 'whether the true body and blood of christ are present bodily in the bread and wine.' [illustration: fig. . facsimile of the superscription and signatures to the marburg articles.] if we compare the manner in which this disputation at marburg was conducted with the previous character of the contest, in which the one party had denounced their opponents as diabolical fanatics, and the other as reactionary papists and worshippers of 'a god made of bread,' it will be evident that some results of importance at least had been attained by the discussion itself and the mode in which it had been held. the tone here, from first to last, was more courteous, nay, even friendly in comparison. and the moderation now used by these frank, outspoken men, so passionately excited hitherto, could not have resulted solely from self-imposed restraint. luther, when he wished to speak very emphatically, addressed his opponents as 'my dearest sirs.' brenz, who was an eye-witness, tells us one might have thought luther and zwingli were brothers. and, in fact, on all the main doctrines but that one they agreed. finer distinctions of theory, which might have furnished food for argument, were mutually waived. but the essential divergence between them on the one great point of the sacrament, and the spirit manifested in regard to it, made it impossible for luther to hold out to zwingli the right hand of fellowship, which the latter and his party so earnestly desired. luther held to his opinion: 'yours is a different spirit from ours.' his companions unanimously agreed with him that though they might entertain sentiments of friendship and christian love towards them, they dared not acknowledge them as brethren in christ. in the 'articles' the only mention made of this matter was that although they had not yet agreed on that point, still 'each party should treat the other with christian charity, so far as each one's conscience would permit.' on tuesday afternoon luther left marburg, and set out on his journey homeward. at the wish of the elector he travelled by way of schleiz, where john was then consulting with the margrave george of brandenburg about the protestant alliance. they desired of luther a short and comprehensive confession of evangelical faith, as members of which they wished to enrol themselves. luther immediately compiled one accordingly, upon the basis of the marburg articles, making some additions and strengthening some expressions in accordance with his own views. about october he returned to wittenberg. this confession was submitted without delay to a meeting of protestants at schwabach. the result was, that ulm and strasburg declined to subscribe a compact from which the swiss were excluded. within the league itself, the question was now seriously considered, how far the protestant states might go, in the event of the emperor really seeking to coerce them to submission--whether, in a word, they could venture to oppose force to force. luther's opinion, however, on this point remained unshaken. whatever civil law and counsellors might say, it was conclusive for them as christians, in his opinion, that civil authority was ordained by god, and that the emperor, as the lord paramount of germany, was the supreme civil authority in the nation. his first consideration was the imperial dignity, as he conceived it, and the relative position and duties of the princes of the empire. as subjects of the emperor, he regarded these princes in the same light as he regarded their own territorial subjects, the burgomasters of the towns and the various other magnates and nobles, to whom they themselves had never conceded any right to oppose, either by protest or force, their own regulations, as territorial sovereigns, in matters affecting the church. not, indeed, that he required a simply passive obedience, however badly the authorities and the emperor might behave; on the contrary, he admitted the possibility of having to depose the emperor. 'sin itself,' he said, 'does not destroy authority and obedience; but the punishment of sin destroys them, as, for instance, if the empire and the electors were unanimously to dethrone the emperor, and make him cease to be one. but so long as he remains unpunished and emperor, no one should refuse him obedience.' nothing, therefore, in his opinion, short of a common act of the estates could provide a remedy against an unjust, tyrannical, and law-breaking emperor, while at present it was apparent that charles and the majority of the diet were agreed. hence he refused to recognise the right of individual states to an appeal to force, for his theory of the german empire involved the idea of a firm and united community or state, and not in any way that of a league or federation, the independent members of which might take up arms against a breach of their articles of agreement. this theory was shared by his elector and the nürembergers. just as these protestants for conscience sake had refused obedience to the resolution of the diet at spires, so they felt themselves bound by conscience to submit to the consequences of that refusal. luther's opinion, therefore, as to the proper attitude for the protestant states was the same as he had expressed to the elector frederick on his return from the wartburg. it was their duty, he said, if god should permit matters to go so far, to allow the emperor to enter their territory and act against their subjects, without, however, giving their assent or assisting him. but he added: 'it is sheer want of faith not to trust to god to protect us, without any wit or power of man.... "in quietness and confidence shall be your strength."' meanwhile luther was anxious to respond still further to the call of duty against the turks. their multitudinous hosts had advanced as far as vienna, and had severely harassed that city, which, though defended with heroic valour, was but badly fortified. a general assault was made in force while luther was on his homeward journey. the news stirred him to his inmost soul. he ascribed to it, and to their god, the devil, the violent temptations and anguish of soul from which he was then suffering again. immediately after his return, he undertook to write a 'war sermon against the turks.' on october he received the tidings that they were compelled to retreat. this was a 'heavensent miracle' to him. but though his former exhortations and warnings had seemed to many exaggerated, he was right in perceiving that the danger was only averted. he published his sermon, a new edition of which had to be issued with the new year. he saw in the turks the fulfilment of the prophecy of ezekiel and the revelation of st. john about gog and magog, and therewith a judgment of god for the punishment of corrupt christendom. but just as in his first pamphlet he had called on the authorities, in virtue of their appointment by god, to protect their own people against the enemy, so he now wished further to make all german christians strong in conscience and full of courage, to take the field under their banner, according to god's command. he set before them the example of the 'beloved st. maurice and his companions,' and of many other saints, who had served in arms their emperor as knights or citizens. he would, if danger came in earnest, 'fain have, whoever could, defend themselves,--young and old, husband and wife, man-servant and maid-servant,' just as, according to ancient roman writers, the german wives and maidens fought together with the men. he looked on no house as so mean that it might not do something to repel the foe. was it not better to be slain at home, in obedience to god, than to be taken prisoners and dragged away like cattle to be sold? at the same time he exhorted and encouraged those whom this misfortune befell, that, as jeremiah admonished the jews in babylon, they should be patient in prison, and cling firmly to the faith, and neither through their misery nor through the hypocritical worship of the turks, allow themselves to be seduced into becoming renegades. such is what he preached to the people, while he had to complain in his letters to friends that 'the emperor charles threatens us even still more dreadfully than does the turk; so that on both sides we have an emperor as our enemy, an eastern and a western one.' and in those days also he expressed his opinion that those who confessed the gospel should keep their hands 'unsoiled by blood and crime' as regards their emperor, and, even though his behaviour might be a 'very threat of the devil,' should keep steadfastly to their god, with prayer, supplication, and hope,--to that god whose manifest help had hitherto been so abundantly vouchsafed to them. chapter v. the diet of augsburg and luther at coburg, . a proclamation of the emperor, convoking a new diet at augsburg for april , , seemed now to indicate a more pacific demeanour. for in assigning to this diet the task of consulting 'how best to deal with and determine the differences and division in the holy faith and the christian religion,' it desired, for this object, that 'every man's opinions, thoughts, and notions should be heard in love and charity, and carefully weighed, and that men should thus be brought in common to christian truth, and be reconciled.' the emperor by no means meant, as might be inferred from this proclamation, that the two opposing parties should treat and arrange with each other on an equal footing; the rights of the romish church remained, as before, unalterably fixed. he only wished to avoid, if possible, the dangers of internal warfare. even the papal legate campeggio, agreed that conciliatory measures might first be tried; the arrangements for the visitation of the saxon electorate were already construed at rome, as indeed by many german catholics, into a sign that people there were frightened at the so-called freedom of the gospel, and were inclined to return to the old system. but luther at this moment displayed again the confidence which he always so gladly reposed in his emperor. he announced on march to jonas, then absent on the business of the visitation: 'the emperor charles writes that he will come in person to augsburg, to settle everything peaceably.' the elector john immediately instructed his theologians to draw up for him articles in view of the proceedings at the diet, embodying a statement of their own opinions. they were also required to hold themselves in readiness to accompany him on his journey to augsburg. there was, however, no hurry about arriving there; for the emperor came thither so slowly from italy, that it was found impossible to meet on the day originally appointed. on april luther, melancthon, and jonas went to the elector at torgau, in order to start with him from there. he took spalatin also with him, and agricola as preacher. the th, palm sunday, they spent at weimar, where the prince wished to partake of the sacrament. at coburg, where they arrived on the th, they expected to receive further news as to the day fixed for the actual opening of the diet. luther preached here on easter day, and on the following monday and thursday, upon the easter texts and the grand acts of redemption. on friday, the nd, the elector received an intimation from the emperor to appear at augsburg at the end of the month. the next morning he set off at once with his companions. luther, however, was to remain behind. the man on whom lay the ban of the empire and church could not possibly, however favourably inclined the emperor might be towards him, have appeared before the emperor, the estates, and the delegates of the pope; moreover, no safe-conduct would have availed him. luther seems, nevertheless, to have been ingenuous enough to think the contrary. at least, he wrote to a friend that the elector had bidden him remain at coburg; why, he knew not. to another friend, however, he alleged as a reason, that his going would not have been safe. but his prince was anxious to keep him at any rate as close by as possible, at a safe place on the borders of his territory in the direction of augsburg, so that he might be able to obtain advice from him in case of need. moreover, he contemplated the possibility of his being summoned later on to augsburg. a message from the one place to the other took, at that time, four days as a rule. accordingly, on the night of the nd, luther was conveyed to the fortress overlooking the town of coburg. this was the residence assigned to him. his first day here passed by unoccupied. a box which he had brought, containing papers and other things, had not yet been delivered to him. he did not even see any governor of the castle. so he looked around him leisurely from the height, which offered a wide and varied prospect, and examined the apartments now opened for his use. the principal part of the castle, the so-called prince's building, had been assigned him, and he was given at once the keys of all the rooms it contained. the one which he chose as his sitting-room is still shown. he was told that over thirty people took their meals at the castle. but his thoughts were still with his distant friends. he wrote that afternoon to melancthon, jonas, and spalatin. 'dearest philip,' he begins to melancthon, 'we have at last reached our sinai, but we will make a sion of this sinai, and here will i build three tabernacles, one to the psalms, one to the prophets, and one to Æsop.... it is a very attractive place, and just made for study; only your absence grieves me. my whole heart and soul are stirred and incensed against the turks and mahomet, when i see this intolerable raging of the devil. therefore i shall pray and cry to god, nor rest until i know that my cry is heard in heaven. the sad condition of our german empire distresses you more.' then, after expressing a wish that the lord might send his friend refreshing sleep, and free his heart from care, he told him about his residence at the castle, in the 'empire of the birds.' in his letters to jonas and spalatin he indulged in humorous descriptions of the cries of the ravens and jackdaws which he had heard since four o'clock in the morning. a whole troop, he said, of sophists and schoolmen were gathered around him. here he had also his diet, composed of very proud kings, dukes, and grandees, who busied themselves about the empire and sent out incessantly their mandates through the air. this year, he heard, they had arranged a crusade against the wheat, barley, and other kinds of corn, and these fathers of the fatherland already hoped for grand victories and heroic deeds. this, said luther, he wrote in fun, but in serious fun, to chase away if possible the heavy thoughts which crowded on his mind. a few days later he enlarged further on this sportive simile in a letter to his wittenberg table-companions, _i.e._ the young men of the university who, according to custom, boarded with him. he was delighted to see how valiantly these knights of the diet strutted about and wiped their bills, and he hoped they might some day or other be spitted on a hedge-stake. he fancied he could hear all the sophists and papists with their lovely voices around him, and he saw what a right useful folk they were, who ate up everything on the earth and 'whiled away the heavy time with chattering.' he was glad, however, to have heard the first nightingale, who did not often venture to come in april. as companions he had his amanuensis, veit dietrich from nüremberg, and his nephew cyriac kaufmann from mansfeld, a young student. the former, born in , had been at the university of wittenberg since ; he soon became preacher in his native town, where he distinguished himself by his loyalty and courage. they were all hospitably entertained at the castle. luther, in these comfortable quarters, let his beard grow again, as he had formerly done at the wartburg. [illustration: fig. .--veit dietrich, as pastor of nüremberg. (from an old woodcut.)] in that same letter to melancthon, luther mentioned several writings which he had in prospect. his chief work was a public 'admonition to the clergy assembled at the diet at augsburg.' he wished, as he said in the introduction, since he could not personally appear at the diet, at least to be among them in writing with this his 'dumb and weak message;' which he had expressed, however, in the strongest and most forcible language at his command. as for his own cause, he declared that for it no diet was necessary. it had been brought thus far by the true helper and adviser, and there it would remain. he reminded them once more of the chief scandals and iniquities against which he had been forced to contend; he warned them not to strain the strings too tightly, lest perhaps a new rebellion might arise; and he promised them that if only they would leave the gospel free, they should be left in undisturbed possession of their principalities, their privileges, and their property, which in fact was all they cared for. this tract was already printed in may. he now took up in earnest the labours he had spoken of to melancthon. his chief work was the continuation of his german bible, namely the translation of the prophets. he had long complained of the difficulties presented by these books, and he now hoped to have the leisure they required. such was his zeal that, when he came to jeremiah, he looked forward to finishing all the prophets by whitsuntide, but he soon saw that this was impossible. he published the prophecy of ezekiel about gog and magog by itself. his wish was to treat of various portions of the psalms, his own constant book of comfort and prayer, for the benefit of his congregation; and he began, accordingly, with a commentary on the th psalm. he expounded to dietrich whilst at coburg the first twenty-five psalms; and the transcript of his commentary on these, which dietrich left behind him, was afterwards printed. and to these works he wished to add the fables of Æsop. his desire was to adapt them for youth and common men, that they should be of some profit to the germans.' for among them, he said, were to be found, set forth in simple words, the most beautiful lessons and warnings, to show men how to live wisely and peacefully among bad people in the false and wicked world. truth which none would endure, but which no man could do without, was clothed there in pleasing colours of fiction. for this work, however, luther had very little time; we possess only thirteen fables of his version. he has rendered them in the simplest popular language, and expressed the morals in many appropriate german proverbs. luther thought at first that, with these occupations, he had better have remained at wittenberg, where, as professor, he would have been of more service. soon his bodily sufferings--the singing and noise in the head, and the tendency to faintness,--began again to attack him; so that for several days he could neither read nor write, and for several weeks could not work continuously for any length of time. he did not know whether it was the effect of coburg hospitality, or whether satan was at fault. dietrich thought his illness must be caused by satan, since luther had been particularly careful about his diet. he told also of a fiery, serpent-like apparition, which he and luther had seen one evening in june at the foot of the castle hill. the same night luther fainted away, and the next day was very ill; and this fact confirmed dietrich in his belief. on june luther received the news of the death of his aged father, who breathed his last at mansfeld, on sunday, may , after long suffering, and in the firm belief in the gospel preached by his son. luther was deeply moved by this intelligence. he had never ceased to treat him with the same high filial veneration that had formerly prompted him to dedicate to his parent his treatise on monastic vows, and to invite him to the celebration of his marriage, made, as we have seen, in accordance with his father's wish. since his marriage, indeed, his parents had come to visit him at wittenberg; and the town accounts for contain an item of expense for a gallon of wine, given as a _vin d'honneur_ to old luther on that occasion. it was then that cranach painted the portraits of luther's parents which are now to be seen at the wartburg. luther had heard from his brother james in february , that their father was dangerously ill. he sent a letter to him thereupon, on the th of that month, by the hands of his nephew cyriac. he wrote: 'it would be a great joy to me if only you and my mother could come to us here. my kate and all pray for it with tears. i should hope we would do our best to make you comfortable.' meanwhile he prayed earnestly to his heavenly father to strengthen and enlighten with his holy spirit this father whom he had given him on earth. he would leave it in the hands of his dear lord and saviour whether they should meet one another again on earth or in heaven; 'for,' said he, 'we' doubt not but that we shall shortly see each other again in the presence of christ, since the departure from this life is a far smaller matter with god, than if i were to come hither from you at mansfeld, or you were to go to mansfeld from me at wittenberg.' after he had opened the letter with the news of his father's death, he said to dietrich, 'so then, my father too is dead,' and then took his psalter at once, and went to his room, to give vent to his tears. he expressed his grief and emotion the same day in a letter to melancthon. everything, he said, that he was or had, he had received through his creator from this beloved father. he kept up his intimacy with his friends at wittenberg through his letters to his wife, and by a correspondence with his friend jerome weller, who had come to live in his house, and who assisted in the education of his son, little hans. weller, formerly a jurist, and already thirty years old, was then studying theology at wittenberg. he suffered from low spirits, and luther repeatedly sent him from coburg comfort and good advice. the little hans had now begun his lessons, and weller praised him as a painstaking pupil. luther's well-known letter to him was dated from coburg, june . written in the midst of the most serious studies and the most important events and reflections, it must on no account be omitted in a survey of luther's life and character. it runs as follows:-- 'grace and peace in christ, my dear little son. i am pleased to see that thou learnest thy lessons well, and prayest diligently. do thus, my little son, and persevere; when i come home i will bring thee a fine "fairing." i know of a pretty garden where merry children run about that wear little golden coats, and gather nice apples and pears, and cherries, and plums under the trees, and sing and dance, and ride on pretty horses with gold bridles and silver saddles. i asked the man of the place, whose the garden was, and whose the children were. he said, "these are the children who pray and learn, and are good." then i answered, "dear sir, i also have a son who is called hans luther. may he not also come into this garden, and eat these nice pears and apples, and ride a little horse and play with these children?" the man said, "if he says his prayers, and learns, and is good, he too may come into the garden; and lippus and jost may come, [footnote: melancthon's son philip, and jonas's son jodocus.] and when they all come back, they shall have pipes and drums and lutes and all sorts of stringed instruments, and they shall dance and shoot with little crossbows." then he showed me a smooth lawn in the garden laid out for dancing, where hung pipes of pure gold, and drums and beautiful silver crossbows. but it was still early, and the children had not dined. so i could not wait for the dance, and said to the man, "dear sir, i will go straight home and write all this to my dear little son hans, that he may pray diligently and learn well and be good, and so come into this garden; but he has an aunt, lene, [footnote: hans's great-aunt, magdalen, mentioned in part vi. ch. vii.] whom he must bring with him." and the man answered, "so it shall be; go home and write as you say." therefore, dear little son hans, learn and pray with a good heart, and tell lippus and jost to do the same, and then you will all come to the beautiful garden together. almighty god guard you. give my love to aunt lene, and give her a kiss for me. in the year .--your loving father, martin luther.' the intercourse between coburg and augsburg was, as may be imagined, well kept up by letters and messengers. but the crisis of importance arrived when now the great decision approached, or at least seemed to approach, for it was most unexpectedly delayed. though the elector had entered augsburg on may , the emperor did not arrive there till june . he had stopped on the way at innspruck, where duke george and other princes hostile to the reformation hastened to present themselves before him. in the meanwhile, melancthon worked with great industry and anxious labour at the apology and confession which the elector of saxony was to lay before the diet. luther warned him, by his own example, against ruining his head by immoderate exertion. he wrote to him on may : 'i command you and all your company, that they compel you, under pain of excommunication, to keep your poor body by rule and order, so that you may not kill yourself and imagine that you do so from obedience to god. we serve god also by taking holiday and resting; yes, indeed, in no other way better.' melancthon had begun this work at coburg, while there with luther, and based his most important propositions of dogma on the articles which luther had drawn up in the previous autumn at schwabach. his chief efforts, however, in accordance with his own inclination and line of thought, were directed to representing the evangelical doctrines as agreeing with the traditional doctrines of the universal christian church; and the protestant reformation as simply the abolition of certain practical abuses. never would luther have consented to submit to the diet, and the papists and enemies of the gospel there present, a confession which marked so faintly the gulf of difference between himself and them. nevertheless he gladly approved of this composition of his peace-making friend, which was sent to him for his opinion by the elector immediately on its completion, on may . his verdict was: 'i like it well enough, and see nothing to alter or improve; indeed, i could not do so if i would, for i cannot tread so softly and gently. may christ, our lord, help that it may bring forth much fruit, as we hope and pray it will.' he encouraged the elector, in a letter full of tender words of comfort, to keep his heart firm and patient, even if he had to stay in a tedious place. he pointed out to him god's great token of his love, in granting so freely to him and to his people the word of grace, and especially in allowing the tender youth, the boys and girls who were his subjects, to grow up in his country as in a pleasant paradise of god. news now reached them of the emperor, that he blamed the elector for the non-execution of the edict of worms, and forbade the clergymen whom the protestant princes had brought to augsburg, to preach there,--a prohibition against which even luther admitted they were powerless. on the other side, melancthon was particularly troubled and annoyed that the landgrave philip would not admit a repudiation of zwingli's doctrine in the confession, to which melancthon attached the utmost importance, not only on account of the intrinsic objections to that doctrine, but chiefly in the interests of bringing about a reconciliation with the catholics. he begged luther, on may , to try and influence philip by letter on this point. luther appears to have shown but little inclination to accede to the request. melancthon, waiting for his assent, stopped writing to him. meanwhile luther's friends at augsburg were looking with anxiety for the arrival and first appearance of the emperor. three whole weeks passed by before luther again received a letter from them; it was just at this time that he was mourning the death of his father. luther was exceedingly indignant at this silence. on receiving another letter, on june , from melancthon, who said he was impatiently waiting for the letter to the landgrave, luther sent back the messenger without an answer, and at first was unwilling even to read the letter. he did, however, now, what was asked of him. he earnestly but calmly entreated philip not to espouse their opponents' doctrine of the sacrament, or allow himself to be moved by their 'sweet good' words. and when now melancthon, whom he had seriously frightened by his anger, grew restless and desponding and sleepless with increasing disquietude, through the difficulties at augsburg, the threats of his embittered catholic opponents, and the anxiety as to submitting the confession to the elector, and the consequences of so doing, and news also reached luther of the troubles and distress of his other friends, he repeatedly sent to them at augsburg fresh words of encouragement, comfort, and counsel, which remain to attest, more than anything else, the nobleness of his mind and character. he speaks, as from a height of confident, clear, and proud conviction, to those who are struggling in the whirl and vortex of earthly schemes and counsels. he has gained this height, and maintains it in the implicit faith with which he clings to the invisible god, as if he saw him; and, raised above the world, he enjoys filial communion with his heavenly father. in answering another anxious letter from melancthon on the th, he reproved his friend for the cares which he allowed to consume him, and which were the result, he said, not of the magnitude of the task before him, but of his own want of faith. 'let the matter be ever so great,' he said, 'great also is he who has begun and who conducts it; for it is not our work.... "cast thy burthen upon the lord; the lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him." does he say that to the wind, or does he throw his words before animals?... it is your worldly wisdom that torments you, and not theology. as if you, with your useless cares, could accomplish anything. what more can the devil do than strangle us? i conjure you, who in all other matters are so ready to fight, to fight against yourself as your greatest enemy.' two days after, he had already another letter from his friend to answer. he saw from it, he said, the labour and trouble, the distress and tears of his friends. he received also the confession, now completed, and had to give his opinion whether it would be possible to make still more concessions to the romanists. upon this point he wrote: 'day and night i am occupied with it, i turn it over every way in my mind, i meditate and argue, and examine the scriptures on the subject, and more and more convinced do i become of the truth of our doctrine, and more resolved never, if god will, to allow another letter to be torn from us, be the consequence what it may.' but he objected to the others speaking of 'following his authority;' the cause was theirs as much as his, and he himself would defend it, even if he stood alone. he then referred the anxious melancthon again to that faith which had certainly no place in his rhetoric or philosophy. for faith, he said, must recognise the supernatural and the invisible, and he who attempts to see and understand it receives only cares and tears for his reward, as melancthon did now. 'the lord said that he would dwell in the thick darkness,' 'and make darkness his secret place' ( kings viii. ; psalm xviii. ). 'he who wishes, let him do differently; had moses wished first to "understand" what the end of pharaoh's army would be, then israel would still be in egypt. may the lord increase faith in you and all of us; if we have that, what in all the world shall the devil do with us?' he hastened to send off this letter, and wrote more again on the same subject the next day, june , to jonas, who had informed him of melancthon's afflictions and of the fierce hatred of their catholic opponents; also to spalatin, agricola, and brenz, and to the young duke john frederick. he sought to calm the latter about the 'poisonous, wicked talons' of his nearest blood-relations, especially the duke george. he entreated all those theological friends to bring a wholesome influence to bear on their companion melancthon, and for each of them he had particular words of affection. melancthon, he wrote, must be dissuaded from wishing to direct the world and thus crucifying himself. the news that 'the princes and nations rage against the lord's anointed,' he accepted as a good sign; for the psalmist's words that immediately follow (ps. ii. ) were: 'he that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the lord shall have them in derision.' he did not understand how men could be troubled since god still lives: 'he who has created me will be father to my son and husband to my wife; he will guide the community and be preacher to the congregation better than i can myself.' his letter to melancthon shows in an interesting manner the contrast between himself and his friend with regard to cares and temptations. 'in private contests which concern one's own self, i am the weaker, you the stronger combatant; but in public ones, it is just the reverse (if, indeed, any contest can be called private which is waged between me and satan); for you take but small account of your life, while you tremble for the public cause; whereas i am easy and hopeful about the latter, knowing as i do for certain that it is just and true, and the cause of god himself, which has no consciousness of sin to make it blanch, as i must about myself. hence, in the latter case, i am as a careless spectator.' moreover he felt himself just now less visited by his old spiritual temptations, although the devil still made his body weary. how luther used to converse with god as his father and friend, melancthon learned that day from dietrich. the latter heard him pray aloud: 'i know that thou art our father and our god.... the danger is thine as well as ours; the whole cause is thine, we have put our hands to it because we were obliged to; do thou protect it.' luther daily devoted at least three hours to prayer. he liked all his family to do the same. he wrote home to his wife thus: 'pray with confidence, for all is well arranged, and god will aid us.' two years later he said in a sermon about the fulfilment of prayer: 'i have tried it, and many people with me, especially when the devil wanted to devour us at the diet at augsburg, and everything looked black, and people were so excited that everyone expected things would go to ruin, as some had defiantly threatened, and already knives were drawn and guns were loaded; but god, in answer to our prayers, so helped us, that those bawlers, with their clamour and menaces, were put thoroughly to shame, and a favourable peace and a good year granted to us.' just about this time, as jonas announced to luther, duke john frederick had the arms of the reformer cut in stone for a signet ring, and luther was requested, through his friend spengler of nüremberg, to explain their meaning. they were peculiarly appropriate to the times. luther, as long ago, to our knowledge, as the year , instead of his father's arms, which were a crossbow with two roses, had taken as his own one rose, having in its centre a heart with a cross upon it. this, he now explained, should be a black cross on a red heart; for, in order to be saved, it is necessary to believe with our whole heart in our crucified lord, and the cross, though bringing pain and self-mortification, does not corrupt the nature, but rather keeps the heart alive. the heart should be placed in a white rose, to show that faith gives joy, comfort, and peace, and because white is the colour of the spirits and angels, and the joy is not an earthly joy. the rose itself should be set in an azure field; just as this joy is already the beginning of heavenly joy and set in heavenly hope, and outside, round the field, there should be a golden ring, because heavenly happiness was eternal and precious above all possessions. [illustration: fig. .--luther's seal. (taken from letters written in .)] [illustration: fig. .--luther's coat of arms. (from old prints.)] shortly after this, luther received the great news that the summary of belief of german protestants, or augsburg confession, had been submitted on june to the emperor and the estates, in the german language. the emperor, only the day before, had been anxious that it should not be read aloud, but only received in writing. publicly, and in clear and solemn tones, the saxon chancellor read the statement of that evangelical faith, which, only nine years before, at worms, luther had been required to retract. luther was highly rejoiced. he saw fulfilled the words of the psalmist, 'i will speak of thy testimonies also before kings,' and he felt sure that the remainder of the verse, 'and will not be ashamed' (ps. cxix. ), would likewise be accomplished. he wrote to his elector, saying it was, forsooth, a clever trick of their enemies to seal the lips of the princes' preachers at augsburg. the consequence was, that the elector and the other nobles 'now preached freely under the very noses of his imperial majesty and the whole empire, who were obliged to hear them, and could not offer any opposition.' how sorry he felt not to have been present there himself! but he rejoiced to have seen the day when such men stood up in such an assembly, and so bravely bore witness to the truth of christ. tidings also now arrived of a certain clemency and generosity even on the part of the emperor, and of the peaceful disposition of some of the princes, such as duke henry of brunswick, who invited melancthon to dinner, and especially of cardinal albert, the archbishop and elector of mayence. luther, unlike melancthon, was clear and certain on one point, that an agreement with their opponents on the questions of belief and religion was absolutely out of the question. but he now spoke out his opinion most decidedly as to a 'political agreement,' in spite of their differences of belief,--an agreement, in other words, that the two confessions and churches should peacefully exist together in the german empire. this he wished, and almost hoped, might come to pass. in the emperor charles he recognised--he, the loyal-minded german--a good heart and noble blood, worthy of all honour and esteem. he did not dare to hope that the emperor, surrounded as he was by evil advisers, should actually favour the evangelical cause, but he believed at any rate so far in his clemency. in that spirit he once more by letter approached the archbishop. since there was no hope, he wrote, of their becoming one in doctrine, he begged him at least to use his influence that peace might be granted to the evangelicals. for no one could be, or dared be, forced to accept a belief, and the new doctrine did no harm, but taught peace and preserved peace. he endeavoured further to appeal to the archbishop's conscience as a german. 'we germans do not give up believing in the pope and his italians until they bring us, not into a bath of sweat, but a bath of blood. if german princes fell upon one another, that would make the pope, the little fruit of florence, happy; he would laugh in his sleeve and say: "there, you german beasts, you would not have me as pope, so have that."... i cannot hold my hands; i must strive to help poor germany, miserable, forsaken, despised, betrayed, and sold--to whom indeed i wish no harm, but everything that is good, as my duty to my dear fatherland commands me.' luther then would not only not hear of surrender, but looked upon as useless any further negotiations in matters of belief. he could not understand why his friends were detained any longer at augsburg, where they had nothing to expect but menace and bravado on the part of their opponents. on july he wrote to them: 'you have rendered unto caesar the things that are caesar's, and to god the things that are god's.... may christ confess us, as you have confessed him.... thus i absolve you from this assembly in the name of the lord. now go home again--go home!' but they had still to wait for a refutation, which the emperor caused to be drawn up by some strict catholic theologians, among whom were eck, the old and ever violent and active enemy of luther, and john cochlaeus, originally a champion of humanism, but who had, since the beginning of the great contest in the church, distinguished himself by petty but bitter polemics against luther, and now assisted duke george in the place of the deceased emser. meanwhile the spiritual and temporal lords caused the protestants to fear the worst. for melancthon, these were his worst and weakest hours. he even sought to pacify the papal legate, by representing that there was no dogma in which they differed from the roman church. he thought it possible that even large concessions might be made, so far at least as regarded the rites and services of the church. for these were external things, and the bishops belonged to the authorities whom god had placed over the externals of life. luther therefore had still to wait with patience. he continued his encouraging letters, nor did even menaces disturb him. he remembered that too sharp an edge gets only full of notches, and that, as he had already been told by staupitz, god first shuts the eyes of those he wishes to plague. to begin a war now would be dangerous even to their enemies; the beginning would lead to no progress, the war to no victory. to melancthon he spoke, using a coarse german proverb, about a man who 'died of threatening.' he drew his richest and most powerful utterances from his one highest source, the scriptures. in his own peculiar manner he expressed himself once to brück, the chancellor of the saxon elector, his temporal adviser at augsburg, and a man who did much to further the reformation. 'i have lately,' he wrote, 'on looking out of the window, seen two wonders: the first, the glorious vault of heaven, with the stars, supported by no pillar and yet firmly fixed; the second, great thick clouds hanging over us, and yet no ground upon which they rested, or vessel in which they were contained; and then, after they had greeted us with a gloomy countenance and passed away, came the luminous rainbow, which like a frail thin roof nevertheless bore the great weight of water.' if anyone amidst the present troubles was not satisfied with the power of faith, luther would compare him to a man who should seek for pillars to prevent the heavens from falling, and tremble and shake because he could not find them. he was willing, as he wrote in this letter, to rest content, even if the emperor would not grant the political peace they hoped for; for god's thoughts are far above men's thoughts, and god, and not the emperor, must have the honour. in a letter to melancthon he explained calmly and clearly the duty of distinguishing between the bishops as temporal princes or authorities, and the bishops as spiritual shepherds, and how, in this latter capacity, they must never be allowed the right of burdening christ's flock with arbitrary rites and ordinances. he now published a series of small tracts, one after the other, in which, with inflexible determination, he again asserted the evangelical principles against catholic errors. in this spirit he wrote about the church and church authority; against purgatory; about the keys of the church, or how christ dispenses real forgiveness of sins to his community; against the worship of the saints; about the right celebration of the sacrament, and so forth. regardless of the pending questions of dispute, his thoughts reverted likewise to the needy condition of the schools: he wrote a special tract, 'on the duty of keeping children at school.' his commentary on the th psalm was now followed by one upon the th. he also worked indefatigably at the translation of the prophets. thus steadily he persevered in his labours, suffering more or less in his head, always weak and 'capricious.' at the conclusion of his stay at coburg he told a friend that, on account of the 'buzzing and dizziness' in his head, he had been obliged, with all his regularity of habits, to make a holiday of more than half the summer. on august the catholic refutation was at length submitted to the diet. it showed indeed, as did the imperial proclamation convoking the diet, that it was far from the emperor's intention to have the opinions of both sides fairly heard and judged in a friendly and impartial spirit: on the contrary, he demanded that the protestants should declare themselves convinced by it, and therefore conquered. the landgrave philip replied to this demand by quitting augsburg on august , without the leave and contrary to the command of the emperor, and hastening home, openly resolved, in case of need, to meet force by force. but the emperor, though urged by rome to take violent measures, was not prepared, as indeed luther had guessed, for such a sudden stroke. he preferred to adopt a more peaceful and mediating course, and to attempt once more to settle the differences by a mixed commission of fourteen, and afterwards by a new and smaller committee, in which melancthon alone represented the evangelical theologians. the protestants had now to consider seriously the question of a possible submission which melancthon had hitherto been anxiously pondering with himself. luther's view of the entire standpoint and interests of the romish church was now confirmed by the fact that her representatives attached less importance to the more profound differences of doctrine in regard to the inward means of salvation, than to the restoration of episcopal rights and forms of worship, such as, in particular, the mass and the sacrament in both kinds, which formed the principal difficulties during the negotiations. on the other hand, no one had taught more clearly than luther the freedom which belongs to christians in outward forms of constitution and worship, and which enables them to yield to and serve each other on these very points. but he had none the less earnestly cautioned against making concessions to ecclesiastical tyrants, who might make use of them to enslave and mislead souls. in this respect melancthon now showed himself entirely resolved. he longed for a restoration of the catholic episcopacy for the evangelicals, not only for the sake of peace, but because he despaired of securing otherwise a genuine regulation of the church in the face of arbitrary princes and undisciplined multitudes. in fact the protestants on this commission were willing to promise lawful obedience to the bishops, if only the questions of service and doctrine were left to a free council. as regarded the service of the mass the point at issue was whether the protestants could not and ought not to accept it with its whole act of priestly sacrifice, if only an explanation were added as to the difference between this sacrifice and the sacrifice of christ upon the cross. other protestants, on the contrary, especially the representatives of nüremberg, became suspicious and angry at such a way of settling matters, and especially at the behaviour of melancthon. spengler at nüremberg wrote accordingly to luther. the situation was all the more critical, since the negotiations, according to the wish of the emperor, were to proceed uninterruptedly, and there was no time to obtain an opinion from coburg. luther now, to whom the elector submitted the articles which were to bring about an agreement, sent a very calm, clear answer, entering into all the particulars. he gave a purely practical judgment, though resting upon the highest principles. thus, with regard to the mass, he says that the catholic liturgy contained the inadmissible idea that we must pray to god to accept the body of his son as a sacrifice; if this were to be explained in a gloss, either the words of the liturgy would have to be falsified by the gloss, or the gloss by the words of the liturgy. it would be wrong and foolish to run into danger unnecessarily about so troublesome a word. he warned melancthon especially against the power of the bishops. he knew well that obedience to them meant a restriction of the freedom of the gospel; but the bishops would not consider themselves equally bound, and would declare it a breach of faith if everything that they wished were not observed. he then quietly expressed his conviction that the whole attempt at negotiation was a vain delusion. it was wished to make the pope and luther agree together, but the pope was unwilling and luther begged to be excused. firmly and calmly he relied on the consciousness, whatever happened, of his own independence and strength. thus he wrote to spengler: 'i have commended the matter to god, and i think also i have kept it so well in hand that nobody can find me defenceless on any point so long as christ and i are united.' to spalatin he wrote: 'free is luther, and free also is the macedonian (philip of hesse).... only be brave and behave like men!' we have taken this from letters rich in similar thoughts, addressed by luther on august to the elector john, melancthon, spalatin, and jonas, and from other letters written two days after to the three last-named friends and to spengler. he likewise wrote for brenz on the th a preface to his exposition of the prophet amos. this preface shows us how luther himself judged his own words which he sent forth with such power. his own speech, he says, is a wild wood, compared with the clear, pure flow of brenz's language; it was, to compare small things with great, as if his was the strong spirit of elijah, the wind tearing up the rocks, and the earthquake and fire, whereas brenz's was the 'still, small voice.' yet god needs also rough wedges for rough logs, and together with the fruitful rain he sends the storm of thunder and lightning to purify the air. if, however, protestantism was then threatened by danger from mistaken concessions, the danger was soon averted by the demands of its opponents, who went too far even for a melancthon. the proceedings of the smaller committee had likewise to be closed without any result. on september luther was able at last to tell his wife that he hoped soon to return home; to his little hans he promised to bring a 'beautiful large book of sugar,' which his cousin cyriac, who had travelled with luther to augsburg and nüremberg, had brought for him out of that 'beautiful garden.' on the th he received a visit from duke john frederick and count albert of mansfeld upon their return from the diet. the former brought him the signet ring, which, however, was too large even for his thumb; he remarked that lead, not gold, was fitting for him. he only wished he could see his other friends also escaped from augsburg; and although the duke was ready to take him away with him, he preferred to remain behind at coburg, in order, as he wrote to melancthon, to receive them there and wipe off their perspiration after their hot bath. at augsburg negotiations were re-opened with melancthon and brück; the nüremberg deputy even thought it necessary to complain in the strongest terms of an 'underhand unchristian stratagem' against which melancthon would no longer listen to a word of remonstrance; and luther, who heard of these complaints through spengler and link, expressed indeed his full confidence to his saxon theologians, and was particularly anxious not to wound melancthon, but earnestly and pressingly begged him and jonas, on the th of the month, to inform him about the matter, to be on their guard against the crafty attacks of their enemies, and to renounce finally all idea of a compromise. while, however, these letters were on their way past nüremberg through spengler's hands, it was already known there that the new attempt, especially that against the constancy of jonas and spalatin, had shipwrecked, and spengler consequently did not forward them to their address. the evangelical states adhered to their protest of and to the imperial recess of . the emperor made known his displeasure at this result, but found that even those princes who were most zealous against the innovations, were not equally zealous to plunge into at least a doubtful war for the extirpation of heresy, and the aggrandisement, moreover, of the emperor's authority and power, and accordingly he resolved to put off the decision. on the nd he announced a recess, which gave the protestants, whose confession, it was stated, had been publicly heard and refuted, time till the th of the following april for consideration whether, in the matter of the articles in dispute, they would return to unity with the church, pope, and empire. the emperor, meanwhile, engaged to bring about the meeting of a council within a year, for the removal of real ecclesiastical grievances, but reserved until that period the consideration of what further steps should eventually be taken. the evangelicals protested that their confession had never been refuted, and proceeded to lay before the emperor an apology for it, drawn up by melancthon. they accepted the time offered for consideration. so far then the promise was given of the political peace which luther had wished and hoped for. referring to the other dangers and menaces before them, he said to spengler: 'we are cleared and have done enough; the blood be upon their own head.' yet another attempt at union came to luther at coburg from quite a different quarter. strasburg, and three other south german towns, constance, memmingen, and lindau, differing as they did from the lutherans in the sacramental controversy, had laid before the diet a confession of their own--the so-called tetrapolitana. they too, like zwingli, refused to recognise any partaking of the body of christ by the mouth and body of the receiver, but at the same time, unlike him, they based their whole view of the eucharist on the assumption of a real divine gift and a spiritual enjoyment of the 'real body' of christ. on the strength of this view, butzer, the theological representative of strasburg, sought to make further overtures to the wittenbergers. he was not deterred by melancthon's mistrustful opposition or by luther's leaving a letter of his unanswered. he now appeared in person at the castle of coburg, and on september had a confidential and friendly interview with luther. the latter still refused to content himself with a mere 'spiritual partaking,' and, though demanding above all things entire frankness, did not himself conceal a constant suspicion. however, he himself began to hope for good results, and assured butzer he would willingly sacrifice his life three times over, if thereby this division might be put an end to. this fortunate beginning encouraged butzer to further attempts, which he made afterwards in private. the day after the reading of the recess, the elector john was able at length to leave the diet and set forward on his journey home. the emperor took leave of him with these words: 'uncle, uncle, i did not look for this from you.' the elector, with tears in his eyes, went away in silence. after staying a short time at nüremberg, he paid a visit, with his theologians, to luther. they left coburg together on october , and travelled by altenburg, where luther preached on sunday, the th, to the royal residence at torgau. after luther had also preached here on the following sunday, he returned to his home. chapter vi. from the diet of augsburg to the religious peace of nÜremberg, . death of the elector john. no sooner had luther resumed his official duties at wittenberg, than he again undertook extra and very arduous work. bugenhagen went in october to lübeck, as he had previously gone to brunswick and hamburg. the most important advance made by the reformation during those years when its champions had to fight so stoutly at the diets for their rights, was in the north german cities. luther, soon after his arrival at coburg, had received news that lübeck and lüneburg had accepted the reformation. the citizens of lübeck refused to allow any but evangelical preachers, and abolished all non-evangelical usages, though an opposition party appealed to the emperor, and actually induced him to issue a mandate prohibiting the innovations. to organise the new church, the lübeckers would have preferred the assistance of luther himself; but failing him, their delegates begged the elector john, when at augsburg, to send them at least bugenhagen. under these circumstances luther agreed that bugenhagen should be allowed to go, although the wittenberg congregation and university could hardly spare him. his friend was wanted at wittenberg, said luther, all the more because he himself could not be of any use much longer; for what with his failing years and his bad health, so weary was he of life that this accursed world would soon have seen and suffered the last of him. nevertheless, he again undertook at once, so far as his health permitted, the official duties of the town pastor, who this time was absent from wittenberg for a year and a half, until april ; luther, accordingly, not only preached the weekly sermons on wednesdays and saturdays, on the gospels of st. matthew and st. john, but attended continuously to the care of souls and the ordinary business of his office. he would reproach himself with the fact that under his administration the poor-box of the church was neglected, and that he was often too tired and too lazy to do anything. the pains in his head, the giddiness, and the affections of his heart now recurred, and grew worse in march and june , while the next year they developed symptoms of the utmost gravity and alarm. all this time he worked with indefatigable industry to finish his translation of the prophets; in the autumn of he told spalatin that he devoted two hours daily to the task of correction. he brought out a new and revised edition of the psalms, and published some of them with a practical exposition. in addition to these literary labours, which ever remained his first delight, luther's chief task was to advise his elector upon the salient questions, transactions, and dangers of church politics, which, with the recess of the diet and the period thereby allotted for their consideration, had become matters of real urgency. and, in fact, it was to his valuable and conscientious advice that the protestants in general throughout the empire looked for guidance. on november the recess of the diet, passed in defiance of the protestants, was published at augsburg. they accepted the time allowed them for consideration, but the emperor and the empire insisted on maintaining the old ordinances of the church, and the protestants were now required to surrender the ecclesiastical and monastic property in their hands. the latter observed, moreover, that the recess contained no actual promise of peace on the part of the emperor, but that the states only were commanded to keep peace. in fact, the emperor had already promised the pope on october to employ all his force to suppress the protestants. he immediately subjected the supreme court of the empire--the so-called imperial chamber--to a visitation, and instructed it to enforce strictly the contents of the recess in ecclesiastical and religious matters. thus the campaign against the protestants was to begin with the institution of processes at law, with reference particularly to the question of church property. furthermore, to secure the authority and continue the policy of the emperor during his absence, his brother ferdinand was to be elected king of the romans. john of saxony, the only protestant among the electors, opposed the election. he appealed to the fact that the nomination was a direct violation of a decision of imperial law, the golden bull, which declared that the proposal for such an election, during the lifetime of the emperor, must first be unanimously resolved on by the electors. the emperor had a papal brief in his hands which empowered him to exclude john, as a heretic, from electing, but he did not find it prudent to make use of it. the election actually took place on january , . the protestants now sought for protection in a firm, well-organised union among themselves. they assembled for this purpose at schmalkald at christmas . the more imminent, however, the danger to be encountered, the more necessary it became to determine the question whether it was lawful to resist the emperor. the jurists who advised in favour of resistance, adduced certain arguments, without, however, stating any very clear or forcible reasons of law. they quoted principles of civil law, to show that a judge, whose sentence is appealed against to a higher court, has no right to execute it by force, and that if he does so, resistance may lawfully be offered him; and they proceeded to apply this analogy to the appeal of the protestants to a future council, and the action taken against them, while their appeal was still pending, by the emperor. they were nearer the mark when they argued that, according to the constitution of the empire and the imperial laws themselves, the sovereignty of the emperor was in no sense unlimited or incapable of being resisted; but then the difficulty here was, that the right of individual states to oppose decrees, passed at a regular diet by the emperor and the majority of the members present, was not yet proved. there was a general want of clearness and precision connected with the theories then being developed of the relations of the different states and the interpretation of their rights. upon this matter, then, luther was called on again, with the other wittenberg theologians, to give an opinion. the jurists also, especially the chancellor brück, were associated with them in their deliberations. on the question about ferdinand's election as king of rome, luther strongly advised his elector to give way. the danger which, in the event of his refusal, menaced both himself and the whole of germany appeared to luther far too serious to justify it. the occasion would be used to deprive him of the electorship, and perhaps give it to duke george; and germany would be rent asunder and plunged into war and misery. this, said luther, was his advice; adding, however, that as he held such a humble position in the world, he did not understand to give much advice in such important matters, nay, he was 'too much like a child in these worldly affairs.' but a change had now come in his views about the right of resistance; a change which, though in reality but an advance upon his earlier principles, led to an opposite result. he taught that civil authorities and their ordinances were distinctly of god, and by these ordinances he understood, according to the apostle's words, the different laws of different states, so far as they had anywhere acquired stability. with regard to germany, as we have seen, his good monarchical principles did not as yet prevent his holding the opinion that the collective body of the princes of the empire could dethrone an unworthy emperor. the determining question with him now was what the law of the empire or the edict of the emperor himself would decide, in the event of resistance being offered by individual states of the empire, which found themselves and their subjects injured in their rights and impeded in the fulfilment of their duties. the answer to this, however, he conceived to be a matter no longer for theologians, but for men versed in the law, and for politicians. theologians could only tell him that though, indeed, a christian, simply as a christian, must willingly suffer wrong, yet the secular authorities, and therefore every german prince having authority, were bound to uphold their office given them by god, and protect their subjects from wrong. as to what were the established ordinances and laws of each individual state, that was a matter for jurists to decide, and for the princes to seek their counsel. accordingly, the wittenberg theologians declared as their opinion that if those versed in the law could prove that in certain cases, according to the law of the empire, the supreme authority could be resisted, and that the present case was one of that description, not even theologians could controvert them from scripture. in condemning previously all resistance, they said, they 'had not known that the sovereign power itself was subject to the law.' the net result was that the allies really considered themselves justified in offering resistance to the emperor, and prepared to do so. the responsibility, as luther warned them, must rest with the princes and politicians, inasmuch as it was their duty to see that they had right on their side. 'that is a question,' he said, 'which we neither know nor assert: i leave them to act.' luther gave open vent to his indignation at the recess of the diet and the violent attacks of the catholics in two publications, early in , one entitled 'gloss on the supposed edict of the emperor,' and the other, 'warning to his beloved germans.' in the former he reviewed the contents of the edict and the calumnies it heaped upon the evangelical doctrines, not intending, as he said, to attack his imperial majesty, but only the traitors and villains, be they princes or bishops, who sought to work their own wicked will, and chief of all the arch-rogue, the so-called vicegerent of god, and his legates. the other treatise contemplates the 'very worst evil' of all that then threatened them, namely, a war resulting from the coercive measures of the emperor and the resistance of the protestants. as a spiritual pastor and preacher he wished to counsel not war, but peace, as all the world must testify he had always been the most diligent in doing. but he now openly declared that if, which god forbid, it came to war, he would not have those who defended themselves against the bloodthirsty papists censured as rebellious, but would have it called an act of necessary defence, and justify it by referring to the law and the lawyers. these publications occasioned fresh dealings with duke george, who again complained to the elector about them, and also about certain letters falsely ascribed to luther, and then published a reply, under an assumed name, to his first pamphlet. luther answered this 'libel' with a tract entitled 'against the assassin at dresden,' not intended, as many have supposed, to impute murderous designs to the duke, but referring to the calumnies and anonymous attacks in his book. the tone employed by luther in this tract reminds us of his saying that 'a rough wedge is wanted for a rough log.' it brought down upon him a fresh admonition from his prince, in reply to which he simply begged that george might for the future leave him in peace. the imminence of the common danger favoured the attempts of the south german states to effect an agreement with the german protestants, and the efforts of butzer in that direction. luther himself acknowledged in a letter to butzer, how very necessary a union with them was, and what a scandal was caused to the gospel by their rupture hitherto, nay, that if only they were united, the papacy, the turks, the whole world, and the very gates of hell would never be able to work the gospel harm. nevertheless, his conscience forbade him to overlook the existing differences of doctrine; nor could he imagine why his former opponents, if they now acknowledged the real presence of the body at the sacrament, could not plainly admit that presence for the mouth and body of all partakers, whether worthy or unworthy. he deemed it sufficient at present, that each party should desist from writing against the other, and wait until 'perhaps god, if they ceased from strife, should vouchsafe further grace.' the new explanations, however, were enough to make the schmalkaldic allies abandon their scruples to admitting the south germans, and they were accordingly received into the league. thus then, at the end of march , a mutual defensive alliance for six years of the members of the schmalkaldic league was concluded between the elector john, the landgrave philip, three dukes of brunswick lüneburg, prince wolfgang of anhalt, counts albert and gebhard of mansfeld, the north german towns of magdeburg, bremen, and lübeck, and the south german towns of strasburg, constance, memmingen, and lindau, and also ulm, reutlingen, bibrach, and isny. even luther no longer raised any objections. by this alliance the protestants presented a firm and powerful front among the constituent portions of the german empire. their adversaries were not so agreed in their interests. between the dukes of bavaria, and between the emperor and ferdinand, political jealousy prevailed to an extent sufficient to induce the former to combine with the heretics against the newly-elected king. outside germany, denmark reached the hand of fellowship to the schmalkaldic league; for the exiled king of denmark, christian ii., who had previously turned to the saxon elector and been friendly to luther, now sought, after returning in all humility to the orthodox church, to regain his lost sovereignty with the help of his brother-in-law, the emperor. the king of france also was equally ready to make common cause with the protestant german princes against the growing power of charles v. as for luther, we find no notice on his part of the schemes and negotiations connected with these political events, much less any active participation in them. there was just then a rupture pending between henry viii. of england and the emperor, and the former was preparing to secede from the church of rome. henry was anxious for a divorce from his wife katharine of arragon, an aunt of the emperor, on the ground of her previous marriage with his deceased brother, which, as he alleged, made his own marriage with her illegal; and since the pope, in spite of long negotiations, refused, out of regard for the emperor, to accede to his request, henry had an opinion prepared by a number of european universities and men of learning, on the legality and validity of his marriage, which in fact for the most part declared against it. a secret commissioner of the former 'protector of the faith' was then sent to the wittenbergers, and to luther, whom he had so grossly insulted. luther, however, pronounced (sept. , ) against the divorce, on the ground that the marriage, though not contrary to the law of god as set forth in scripture, was prohibited by the human law of the church. the political side of the question he disregarded altogether. he expressed himself to spalatin, in a certain tone of sadness, about the pope's evil disposition towards the emperor, the intrigues he seemed to be promoting against him in france, and the animosity of henry viii. towards him on account of his decision on the marriage; and added, 'such is the way of this wicked world; may god take our emperor under his protection!' with charles v. and ferdinand the question of peace or war was, of necessity, largely governed by the menacing attitude of the turks; in fact it determined their policy in the matter. luther kept this danger steadily in view; after the publication of the recess he promised the wrath of god upon those madmen who would enter upon a war while they had the turks before their very eyes. ferdinand in vain sought to conclude a treaty of peace with the sultan, who demanded him to surrender all the fortresses he still possessed in a part of hungary, and reserved the right of making further conquests. he was even induced, in march , to advise his brother to effect a peaceful arrangement with the protestants, in order to ensure their assistance in arms. attempts at reconciliation were accordingly made through the intervention of the electors of the palatinate and mayence. the term allowed by the diet (april ) passed by unnoticed. the emperor also directed the 'suspension of the proceedings, which he had been authorised by the recess of augsburg to set on foot in religious matters, till the approaching diet.' the negotiations were languidly protracted through the summer, without effecting any definite result. an opinion, drawn up jointly by luther, melancthon, and bugenhagen, advised against an absolute rejection of the proposed restoration of episcopal power; the only thing necessary to insist upon being that the clergy and congregations should be allowed by the bishops the pure preaching of the gospel which had hitherto been refused them. about this time luther had the grief of losing his mother. she died on june , after receiving from her son a consolatory letter in her last illness. of his own physical suffering in this month we have already spoken. on the th, he wrote to link that satan had sent all his messengers to buffet him ( cor. xii. ), so that he could only rarely write or do anything: the devil would probably soon kill him outright. and yet not his will would be done, but the will of him who had already overthrown satan and all his kingdom. soon afterwards, the desire of the catholics for coercive measures was stimulated afresh by the news of a defeat which the reformed cities in switzerland had sustained at the hands of the five catholic cantons, notwithstanding that the balance of force inclined there far more than in germany to the side of the evangelicals. the struggle which luther was perpetually endeavouring to avert from germany, culminated in switzerland in a bloody outbreak, mainly at zwingli's instigation. zwingli himself fell on october in the battle of cappel, a victim of the patriotic schemes by which he had laboured to achieve for his country a grand reform of politics, morality, and the church, but for which he had failed to enlist any intelligent or unanimous co-operation on the part of his companions in faith. ferdinand triumphed over this first great victory for the catholic cause. he was now ready to renounce humbly his claim upon hungary, so that, by making peace with the sultan, he might leave his own and the emperor's hands free in germany. luther saw in the fate of zwingli another judgment of god against the spirit of münzer, and in the whole course of the war a solemn warning for the members of the schmalkaldic league not to boast of any human alliance, and to do their utmost to preserve peace. but the events in switzerland gave no handle against those who had not joined the zwinglians, nor were even the latter weakened thereby in power and organisation. the south germans had now to cling all the more firmly to their alliance with the lutheran princes and cities; the zwinglian movement suffered shortly afterwards (dec. ) a severe loss in the death of oecolampadius. finally the sultan was not satisfied with ferdinand's repeated offers, but prepared for a new campaign against austria in the spring of , and towards the end of april he set out for it. this checked the feverous desire of germans for war against their fellow-countrymen, and brought to a practical result the negotiations for a treaty which had been conducted early in at schweinfurt, and later on at nüremberg. they amounted to this: that all idea of an agreement on the religious and ecclesiastical questions in dispute was abandoned until the hoped-for council should take place, and that, as had long been luther's opinion, they should rest content with a political peace or _modus vivendi_, which should recognise both parties in the position they then occupied. the main dispute was on the further question, how far this recognition should extend;--whether only to the schmalkaldic allies, the immediate parties to the present agreement, or to such other states of the empire as might go over to the new doctrine from the old church--which still remained the established church of the emperor and the empire in general--and, perhaps further, to protestant subjects of catholic princes of the empire. there was also still the question as to the validity of ferdinand's election as king of rome. luther was again and again asked for his opinion on this subject. he was just then suffering from an unusually severe attack, which incessantly reminded him of his approaching end. in addition, he was deeply concerned about the health of his beloved elector. early in the morning of january he was seized again, as his friend dietrich, who lived with him, informs us, with another violent attack in his head and heart. his friends who had come to him began to speak of the effect his death would have on the papists, when he exclaimed, 'but i shall not die yet, i am certain. god will never strengthen the papal abominations by letting me die now that zwingli and oecolampadius are just gone. satan would no doubt like to have it so: he dogs my heels every moment; but not his will will be done, but the lord's.' the physician thought that apoplexy was imminent, and that if so, luther could hardly recover. the attack however seems to have quickly passed away, but luther's head remained racked with pain. a few weeks later, towards the end of february, he had to visit the elector at torgau, who was lying there in great suffering, and had been compelled to have the great toe of his left foot amputated. luther writes thence about himself to dietrich, saying that he was thinking about the preface to his translation of the prophets, but suffered so severely from giddiness and the torments of satan, that he well-nigh despaired of living and returning to wittenberg. 'my head,' he says, 'will do no more: so remember that, if i die, your talents and eloquence will be wanted for the preface.' for a whole month, as he remarked at the beginning of april, he was prevented from reading, writing, and lecturing. he informed spalatin, in a letter of may , which bugenhagen wrote for him, that at present, god willing, he must take a holiday. and on june he told amsdorf that his head was gradually recovering through the intercessions of his friends, but that he despaired of regaining his natural powers. notwithstanding this condition and frame of mind, luther continued to send cordial, calm, and encouraging words of peace, concerning the negotiations then pending, both to the elector john and his son john frederick. concerning ferdinand's election luther declared to these two princes on february , and again afterwards, that it must not be allowed to embarrass or prevent a treaty of peace. if it violated a trifling article of the golden bull, that was no sin against the holy ghost, and god could show the protestants, for a mote like this in the eyes of their enemies, whole beams in their own. it must needs be an intolerable burden to the elector's conscience if war were to arise in consequence,--a war which might 'well end in rending the empire asunder and letting in the turks, to the ruin of the gospel and everything else.' an opinion, drawn up on may by luther and bugenhagen, was equally decided in counselling submission on the question as to the extension of the truce, if peace itself depended upon it. for if the emperor, he said, was now pleased to grant security to the now existing protestant states, he did so as a favour and a personal privilege. they could not coerce him into showing the same favour to others. others must make the venture by the grace of god, and hope to gain security in like manner. everyone must accept the gospel at his own peril. luther began already to hear the reproach that to adopt such a course would be to renounce brotherly love, for christians should seek the salvation and welfare of others besides themselves. he was reproached again with disowning by his conduct the protestant ideal of religious freedom and the equal rights of confessions. very differently will he be judged by those who realise the legal and constitutional relations then existing in germany, and the ecclesiastico-political views shared in common by protestants and catholics, and who then ask what was to be gained by a course contrary to that which he advised in the way of peace and positive law. that the sovereigns of catholic states should secure toleration to the evangelical worship in their own territories was opposed to those general principles by virtue of which the protestant rulers took proceedings against their catholic subjects. according to those principles, nothing was left for subjects who resisted the established religion of the country but to claim free and unmolested departure. luther observed with justice, 'what thou wilt not have done to thee, do not thou to others.' with regard to the further question as to the princes who should hereafter join the protestants, it certainly sounds naive to hear luther speak of a present mere act of favour on the part of the emperor. but he was strictly right in his idea, that a concession, involving the separation of some of the states of the empire from the one church system hitherto established indivisibly throughout the empire, and their organisation of a separate church, had no foundation whatever in imperial law as existing before and up to the reformation, and could in so far be regarded simply as a free concession of the emperor and empire to individual members of the general body; who, therefore, had no right to compel the extension of this concession to others, and thereby hazard the peace of the empire. something had already been gained by the fact that at least no limitation was expressed. a door was thus left open for extension at a future time; and for those who wished to profit by this fact, the danger, if only peace could be assured, was at any rate diminished. if we may see any merit in the fact that the german nation at that time was spared a bloody war, unbounded in its destructive results, and that a peaceful solution was secured for a number of years, that merit is due in the first place to the great reformer. he acted throughout like a true patriot and child of his fatherland, no less than like a true christian teacher and adviser of conscience. the negotiations above described involved the further question about a council, pending which a peaceful agreement was now effected. in the article providing for the convocation of a 'free christian council,' the protestants demanded the addition of the words, 'in which questions should be determined according to the pure word of god.' on this point, however, luther was unwilling to prolong the dispute. he remarked with practical wisdom that the addition would be of no service; their opponents would in any case wish to have the credit of having spoken according to the pure word of god. in june bad news came again from nüremberg, tending to the belief that the papists had thwarted the work of peace. luther again exclaimed, as he had done after the diet of augsburg, 'well, well! your blood be upon your own heads; we have done enough.' towards the end of the month, when the elector again invited his opinion, he repeated, with even more urgency than before, his warnings to those protestants also who were 'far too clever and confident, and who, as their language seemed to show, wished to have a peace not open to dispute.' he begged the elector, in all humility, to 'write in earnest a good, stern letter to our brethren,' that they might see how much the emperor had graciously conceded to them which could be accepted with a good conscience, and not refuse such a gracious peace for the sake of some paltry, far-fetched point of detail. god would surely heal and provide for such trifling defects. on july the peace was actually concluded at nüremberg, and signed by the emperor on august . both parties were mutually to practise christian toleration until the council was held; one of these parties being expressly designated as the schmalkaldic allies. the value of this treaty for the maintenance of protestantism in germany was shown by the indignation displayed by the papal legates from the first at the emperor's concessions. the elector john was permitted to survive the conclusion of the peace, which he had been foremost among the princes in promoting. shortly after, on august , he was seized with apoplexy when out hunting, and on the following day he breathed his last. luther and melancthon, who were summoned to him at schweinitz, found him unconscious. luther said his beloved prince, on awakening, would be conscious of everlasting life; just as when he came from hunting on the lochau heath, he would not know what had happened to him; as said the prophet (isaiah lvii. , ), 'the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. he shall enter into peace; they shall rest in their beds.' luther preached at his funeral at wittenberg, as he had done seven years before at his brother's, and spalatin tells us how he wept like a child. john had, throughout his reign, laboured conscientiously to follow the word of god, as taught by luther, and to encounter all dangers and difficulties by the strength of faith. he has rightly earned the surname of 'the steadfast.' luther especially praises his conduct at the diet of augsburg in this respect; he frequently said to his councillors on that occasion, 'tell my men of learning that they are to do what is right, to the praise and glory of god, without regard to me, or to my country and people.' luther distinguished piety and benevolence as the two most prominent features of his character, as wisdom and understanding had been those of the elector frederick's. 'had the two princes,' he said, 'been one, that man would have been a marvel.' part vi. _from the religious peace of nÜremberg to the death of luther_. chapter i. luther under john frederick. - . political peace had been the blessing which luther hoped to see obtained for his countrymen and his church, during the anxious time of the augsburg diet. such a peace had now been gained by the development of political relations, in which he himself had only so far co-operated as to exhort the protestant states to practise all the moderation in their power. he saw in this result the dispensation of a higher power, for which he could never be thankful enough to god. for the remainder of his life he was permitted to enjoy this peace, and, so far as he could, to assist in its preservation. in the enjoyment of it he continued to build on the foundations prepared for him under the protecting patronage of frederick the wise, and on which the first stone of the new church edifice had been laid under the elector john. a longer time was given him for this work than he had anticipated. we have had occasion frequently to refer not only to his thoughts of approaching death, but also to the severe attacks of illness which actually threatened to prove fatal. although these attacks did not recur with such dangerous severity in the later years of his life, still a sense of weakness and premature old age invariably remained behind them. exhaustion, caused by his work and the struggles he had undergone, debarred him from exertion for which he had all the will. he constantly complained of weakness in the head and giddiness, which totally unfitted him for work, especially in the morning. he would break out to his friends with the exclamation, 'i waste my life so uselessly, that i have come to bear a marvellous hatred towards myself. i don't know how it is that the time passes away so quickly, and i do so little. i shall not die of years, but of sheer want of strength.' in begging one of his friends at a distance to visit him once more, he reminds him that, in his present state of health, he must not forget that it might be for the last time. no wonder then if his natural excitability was often morbidly increased. he always looked forward with joy to his leaving this 'wicked world,' but as long as he had to work in it, he exerted all his powers no less for his own immediate task than for the general affairs of the church, which incessantly demanded his attention. the mutual trust and friendship subsisting between the reformer and his sovereign continued unbroken with john's son and successor, john frederick. this elector, born in , had, while yet a youth, embraced luther's teaching with enthusiasm, and leaned upon him as his spiritual father. luther, on his side, treated him with a confidential, easy intimacy, but never forgot to address him as 'most illustrious prince' and 'most gracious lord.' when the young man assumed the electorship, and appeared at wittenberg a few days after his father's death, he at once invited luther to preach at the castle and to dine at his table. luther expressed indeed to friends his fear that the many councillors who surrounded the young elector might try to exert evil influences upon him, and that he might have to pay dearly for his experience. it might be, he said, that so many dogs barking round him would make him deaf to anyone else. for instance, they might take a grudge against the clergy and cry out, if admonished by them, what can a mere clerk know about it? but his relations with his prince remained undisturbed. he saw with joy how the latter was beginning to gather up the reins which his gentle-minded father had allowed to grow too slack, and he hoped that if god would grant a few years of peace, john frederick would take in hand real and important reforms in his government, and not merely command them but see them executed. the elector's wife, sybil, a princess of juliers, shared her husband's friendship for luther. the elector had married her in , after taking luther into his confidence, and being warned by him against needlessly delaying the blessing which god had willed to grant him. on what a footing of cordial intimacy she stood with both luther and his wife, is shown by a letter she wrote to him in january , while her husband was away on a journey. she says that she will not conceal from him, as her 'good friend and lover of the comforting word of god,' that she finds the time very tedious now that her most beloved lord and husband is away, and that therefore she would gladly have a word of comfort from luther, and be a little cheerful with him; but that this is impossible at weimar, so far off as it is, and so she commends all, and luther and his dear wife, to the loving god, and will put her trust in him. she begs him in conclusion: 'you will greet your dear wife very kindly from us, and wish her many thousand good-nights, and if it is god's will, we shall be very glad to be with her some day, and with you also, as well as with her: this you may believe of us at all times.' in the last years of his life luther had to thank her for similar greetings and inquiries after his own health and that of his family. in the tenth year of the new elector's reign luther was able publicly and confidently to bear witness against the calumnies brought against his government. 'there is now,' he said 'thank god, a chaste and honourable manner of life, truthful lips, and a generous hand stretched out to help the church, the schools, and the poor; an earnest, constant, faithful heart to honour the word of god, to punish the bad, to protect the good, and to maintain peace and order. so pure also and praiseworthy is his married life, that it can well serve as a beautiful example for all, princes, nobles, and everyone--a christian home as peaceful as a convent, which men are so wont to praise. god's word is now heard daily, and sermons are well attended, and prayer and praise are given to god, to say nothing of how much the elector himself reads and writes every day.' only one thing luther could not and would not justify, namely, that at times the elector, especially when he had company, drank too much at table. unhappily the vice of intemperance prevailed then not only at court but throughout germany. still john frederick could stand a big drink better than many others, and, with the exception of this failing, even his enemies must allow him to have been endued with great gifts from god, and all manner of virtues becoming a praiseworthy prince and a chaste husband. luther's personal relations with the elector never made him scruple to express to him freely, in his letters, words of censure as well as of praise. in his academical lectures luther devoted his chief labours for several terms after to st. paul's epistle to the galatians. he had already commenced this task before and during the contest about indulgences, his object having been to expound to and impress upon his hearers and readers the great truth of justification by faith, set forth in that epistle with such conciseness and power. this doctrine he always regarded as a fundamental verity and the groundwork of religion. in all its fulness and clearness, and with all his old freshness, vigour, and intensity of fervour, he now exhaustively discussed this doctrine. his lectures, published, with a preface of his, by the wittenberg chaplain rörer in , contain the most complete and classical exposition of his pauline doctrine of salvation. in the introduction to these lectures he declared that it was no new thing that he was offering to men, for by the grace of god the whole teaching of st. paul was now made known; but the greatest danger was, lest the devil should again filch away that doctrine of faith and smuggle in once more his own doctrine of human works and dogmas. it could never be sufficiently impressed on man, that if the doctrine of faith perished, all knowledge of the truth would perish with it, but that if it flourished, all good things would also flourish, namely, true religion, and the true worship and glory of god. in his preface he says: 'one article--the only solid rock--rules in my heart, namely, faith in christ: out of which, through which, and to which all my theological opinions ebb and flow day and night.' to his friends he says of the epistle to the galatians: 'that is my epistle, which i have espoused: it is my katie von bora.' his sermons to his congregation were now much hindered by the state of his health. it was his practice, however, after the spring of , to preach every sunday at home to his family, his servants, and his friends. but his greatest theological work, which he intended for the service of all his countrymen, was the continuation and final conclusion of his translation of the bible. after publishing in his translation of the prophets, which had cost him immense pains and industry, the apocrypha alone remained to be done;--the books which, in bringing out his edition of the bible, he designated as inferior in value to the holy scriptures, but useful and good to read. well might he sigh at times over the work. in november , being then wholly engrossed with the book of sirach, he wrote to his friend amsdorf saying that he hoped to escape from this treadmill in three weeks, but no one can discover any trace of weariness or vexation in the german idiom in which he clothed the proverbs and apophthegms of this book. notwithstanding the length of time which his task occupied, and his constant interruptions, it has turned out a work of one mould and casting, and shows from the first page to the last how completely the translator was absorbed in his theme, and yet how closely his life and thoughts were interwoven with those of his fellow countrymen, for whom he wrote and whose language he spoke. in the whole of his german bible was at length in print, and the next year a new edition was called for. of the new testament, with which luther had commenced the work, as many as sixteen original editions, and more than fifty different reimpressions, had appeared up to . with regard to the wants of the church, luther looked to the energy of the new elector for a vigorous prosecution of the work of visitation. a reorganisation of the church had been effected by these means, but many more evils had been exposed than cured, nor had the visitations been yet extended to all the parishes. the elector john had already called on luther, together with jonas and melancthon, for their opinion as to the propriety of resuming them, and only four days before his death he gave instructions on the subject to his chancellor brück. john frederick, in the first year of his rule, did actually put the new visitation into operation, in concert with his landtag. the main object sought at present was to bring about better discipline among the members of the various congregations, and to put down the sins of drunkenness, unchastity, frivolous swearing, and witchcraft. luther and even melancthon were no longer required to give their services as visitors: luther's place on the commission for electoral saxony was filled by bugenhagen. his own views and prospects in regard to the condition of the people remained gloomy. he complains that the gospel bore so little fruit against the powers of the flesh and the world; he did not expect any great and general change through measures of ecclesiastical law, but trusted rather to the faithful preaching of the divine word, leaving the issue to god. it was particularly the nobles and peasants whom he had to rebuke for open or secret resistance against this word. he exclaims in a letter to spalatin, written in : ' how shamefully ungrateful are our times! everywhere nobles and peasants are conspiring in our country against the gospel, and meanwhile enjoy the freedom of it as insolently as they can; god will judge in the matter!' he had to complain besides of indifference and immorality in his immediate neighbourhood, among his wittenbergers. thus he addressed, on midsummer day , after his sermon, a severe rebuke to drunkards who rioted in taverns during the time of divine service, and he exhorted the magistrates to do their duty by proceeding against them, so as not to incur the punishment of the elector or of god. the territories of anhalt, immediately adjoining the dominions of the saxon elector, now openly joined the evangelical confession, of which their prince, wolfgang of kothen, had long been a faithful adherent; and luther contracted in this quarter new and close friendships, like that which subsisted between himself and his own elector. anhalt dessau was under the government of three nephews of wolfgang, namely, john, joachim, and george. they had lost their father in early life. one of them had for his guardian the strictly catholic elector of brandenburg, the second, duke george of saxony, and the third, the cardinal archbishop albert. george, born in , was made in canon at merseburg, and afterwards prebendary of magdeburg cathedral. the cardinal had taken peculiar interest in him ever since his boyhood, on account of his excellent abilities, and he did honour to his office by his fidelity, zeal, and purity of life. the new teaching caused him severe internal struggles. his theological studies showed him how rotten were the foundations of the romish system, but, on the other hand, the new doctrine awakened suspicions on his part lest, with its advocacy of gospel liberty and justification by faith, it might tempt to sedition and immorality. but it finally won his heart, when he learned to know it in its pure form through the augsburg confession and the apology of melancthon, while the catholic refutation drawn up for the diet of augsburg excited his disgust. his two brothers, whose devoutness of character their enemies could no more dispute than his own, became converts also to protestantism. in they appointed luther's friend nicholas hausmann their court-preacher, and invited luther and melancthon to stay with them at worlitz. george, in virtue of his office as archdeacon and prebendary of magdeburg, himself undertook the visitation, and had the candidates for the office of preacher examined at wittenberg. luther eulogised the two brothers as 'upright princes, of a princely and christian disposition,' adding that they had been brought up by worthy and godfearing parents. he kept up a close and intimate friendship with them, both personally and by letter. a disposition to melancholy on the part of joachim gave luther an opportunity of corresponding with him. while cheering him with spiritual consolation, he recommended him to seek for mental refreshment in conversation, singing, music, and cracking jokes. thus he wrote to him in as follows: 'a merry heart and good courage, in honour and discipline, are the best medicine for a young man--aye, for all men. i, who have spent my life in sorrow and weariness, now seek for pleasure and take it wherever i can.... pleasure in sin is the devil, but pleasure shared with good people in the fear of god, in discipline and honour, is well-pleasing to god. may your princely highness be always cheerful and blessed, both inwardly in christ, and outwardly in his gifts and good things. he wills it so, and for that reason he gives us his good things to make use of, that we may be happy and praise him for ever.' during these years, the negotiations concerning the general affairs of the church, the restoration of harmony in the christian church of the west, and the internal union of the protestants, still proceeded, though languidly and with little spirit. with the promise, and pending the assembly, of a council, the religious peace had been at length concluded. before the close of the emperor actually succeeded in inducing pope clement, at a personal interview with him at bologna, to announce his intention to convoke a council forthwith. he urged him to do so by frightening him with the prospect of a german national synod, such as even the orthodox states of the empire might resolve on, in the event of the pope obstinately opposing a council, and in that case, of a possible combination of the entire german nation against the papal see. he knew, indeed, well enough, that the holy father, in making this promise, had no intention whatever of keeping it. the pope now sent a nuncio to the german princes, to make preparations for giving effect to his promise; the emperor sent with him an ambassador of his own, as well for his control as his support. when the nuncio and ambassador reached john frederick at weimar, the elector consulted with luther, bugenhagen, jonas, and melancthon about the object of their coming, and for that purpose, on june , , he came in person to wittenberg, and had an opinion drawn up in writing. the papal invitation to the council stated that, agreeably with the demands of the germans, it should be a free christian council, and also that it should be held in accordance with ancient usage as from the beginning. luther declared that this was merely a 'muttering in the dark,' half angel-like, half devil-like. for if by the words 'from the beginning' were meant the primitive christian assemblies, such as those of the apostles (acts xv.), then the council now intended was bound to act according to the word of god, freely, and without regard to any future councils; a council on the other hand, held according to previous usage, as, for example, that of constance, was a council contrary to the word of god, and held in mere human blindness and wantonness. the pope, in describing the council proposed by himself as a free one, was making sport of the emperor, the request of the evangelicals, and the decrees of the diet. how could the pope possibly tolerate a free christian council when he must be quite aware how disadvantageous such a council would be to himself? luther's advice was briefly summed up in this: to restrict themselves to the bare formalities of speech required, and to wait for further events. 'i think it is best,' he said, 'not to busy ourselves at present with anything more than what is necessary and moderate, and that can give no handle to the pope or the emperor to accuse us of intemperate conduct. whether there be a council or not, the time will come for action and advice.' and it soon became clear enough, that clement at any rate would not convene a council. he now entered into an understanding with king francis, who was again meditating an attack against the power of charles v., listened to his proposal that the council might be abandoned, and in march announced to the german princes that, agreeably to the king's wish, he had resolved to adjourn its convocation. how firmly luther persisted--council or no council--in his uncompromising opposition to the romish system, was now shown by several of his new writings, more especially by his treatise 'on private masses and the consecration of priests.' concerning private masses, and the sacrifice of christ's body supposed to be there offered, he now declared that, where the ordinance of christ was so utterly perverted, christ's body was assuredly not present at all, but simple bread and simple wine was worshipped by the priest in vain idolatry, and offered for others to worship in like manner. he knew how they would 'come rolling up to him with the words, "church, church; custom, custom," just as they had answered him once before in his attack on indulgences; but neither the church nor custom had been able to preserve indulgences from their fate.' in the church, even under the popedom, he recognised a holy place, for in it was baptism, the reading of the gospel, prayer, the apostles' creed, &c. but he repeats now, what he had said in his most pungent writings during the earlier struggles of the reformation, namely, that devilish abominations had entered into this place, and so penetrated it with their presence, that only the light of the holy spirit would enable one to distinguish between the place itself and these abominations. he contrasts the mass-holding priests and their stinking oil of consecration with the universal christian priesthood and the evangelical office of preacher. to the principle of this priesthood he still firmly adhered, faithless though he saw the large mass of the congregations to the priestly character with which baptism had invested them, and strictly as he had to guide his action, in the appointment and outward constitution of that office, by existing circumstances and historical requirements. thus he repeats what he had said before, 'we are all born simple priests and pastors in baptism; and out of such born priests, certain are chosen or called to certain offices, and it is their duty to perform the various functions of those offices for us all.' this universal priesthood he would assert and utilise in the celebration of divine service and in the true christian mass; and he appeals for that purpose to the true worship of god by an evangelical congregation. 'there,' he says, 'our priest or minister stands before the altar, having been duly and publicly called to his priestly office; he repeats publicly and distinctly christ's words of institution; he takes the bread and wine, and distributes it according to christ's words; and we all kneel beside and around him, men and women, young and old, master and servant, mistress and maid, all holy priests together, sanctified by the blood of christ. and in such our priestly dignity are we there, and (as pictured in revelations iv.) we have our crowns of gold on our heads, harps in our hands, and golden censers; and we do not let our priest proclaim for himself the ordinance of christ, but he is the mouthpiece of us all, and we all say it with him from our hearts, and with sincere faith in the lamb of god, who feeds us with his body and blood.' in erasmus published a work wherein he endeavoured to effect in his own way the restoration of unity in the church, by exhorting men to abolish practical abuses and show submission in doctrinal disputes, professing for his own part unvarying subjection to the church. in opposition to him, luther hit the right point in a preface he wrote to the reply of the marburg theologian corvinus. erasmus, he said, only strengthened the papists, who cared nothing about a safe truth for their consciences, but only kept on crying out 'church, church, church.' for he too kept on simply repeating that he wished to follow the church, whilst leaving everything doubtful and undetermined until the church had settled it. 'what,' asks luther, 'is to be done with those good souls, who, bound in conscience by the word of divine truth, cannot believe doctrines evidently contrary to scripture? shall we tell them that the pope must be obeyed so that peace and unity may be preserved?' when, therefore, erasmus sought to obtain unity of faith by mutual concession and compromise, luther answered by declaring such unity to be impossible, for the simple reason that the catholics, by their very boasting of the authority of the church, absolutely refused on their part to make any concession at all. but so far as 'unity of charity' was concerned, he held that on that point the evangelicals needed no admonishment, for they were ready to do and suffer all things, provided nothing was imposed upon them contrary to the faith. they had never thirsted for the blood of their enemies, though the latter would gladly persecute them with fire and sword. as for erasmus himself, luther, as already stated, simply regarded him as a sceptic, who with his attitude of subjection to the church, sought only for peace and safety for himself and his studies and intellectual enjoyments. acting on this view, luther, in a letter to amsdorf, written in , and intended for publication, heaped reproaches on erasmus which undoubtedly he uttered in honest zeal, but in which his zeal did not allow him to form an impartial estimate of his opponent or his writings. he saw the bad spirit of erasmus reflected in other men, who, like him, had seen the true character of the romish church, but, like him also, rejoined her communion. instances of this were found in his old friend crotus, who had now entered the service of cardinal albert, and as his 'plate-licker,' as luther called him, abused the reformation; and in the theologian george witzel, a pupil of erasmus and student at wittenberg, who formerly had been suspected even of sympathising with the peasants in their rebellion, and of rejecting the doctrine of the trinity, but who now wished for a reformation after erasmus' ideas, and was one of the foremost literary opponents of the lutheran reformation. luther, however, deemed it superfluous, after all that he had said against the master, to turn also against his subordinates, and the mere mouthpieces of his teaching. in addition to luther's polemics against catholicism in general, must be mentioned a fresh quarrel with duke george. the latter, in , had expelled from saxony some evangelically disposed inhabitants of leipzig and oschatz, decreed that everyone should appear once a year at church for confession, and ordered some seventy or eighty families of leipzig, who had refused to do so, to quit his dominions. luther sent letters, which were afterwards published, of comfort to the exiled, and of exhortation and advice to those who were threatened. duke george thereupon complained to the elector that luther was exciting his subjects to sedition. luther, in reply, spoke out again with double vehemence in a public vindication, whilst george made cochlaeus write against him. further quarrelling was ended by the two princes agreeing, in november , to settle certain matters in dispute, and their theologians also were commanded to keep at peace. with regard to the future, however, luther had spoken words of significance and weight to his persecuted brethren at leipzig, when he reminded them what great and unexpected things god had done since the diet of worms, and how many bloodthirsty persecutors he had since then snatched away. 'let us wait a little while,' he said, 'and see what god will bring to pass. who knows what god will do after the diet of augsburg, even before ten years have gone by?' firmly, however, as luther refused to listen to any surrender in matters of faith, or to any subjection to a catholic council of the old sort, he desired no less to adhere loyally to the 'political concord.' his whole heart and sympathies, as a fellow-christian and a good german, went out with the german troops in their march against the turks, who he hoped might be well routed by the emperor. he never reflected how perilous the consequences of a decisive victory by charles v. over his foreign enemies would be for the protestants of germany, and how divided, therefore, these must feel, at least in their hopes and wishes, during the progress of the war. he only saw in him again the 'dear good emperor.' he wished him like success against his evil-minded french enemy. the pope especially he reproached for his persistent ill-will to the emperor. the popes, he said, had always been hostile to the emperors, and had betrayed the best of them and wantonly thwarted their desires. early in philip of hesse set in earnest about his scheme, so momentous for protestantism, of forcibly expelling king ferdinand from würtemberg, and restoring it to the exiled duke ulrich. the latter, whom the swabian league in , upon a decision of the emperor and empire, had deprived of his territory, and transferred it to the house of austria, was staying with the landgrave in , with whom he attended the conference at marburg, and shared his views on church matters. since then the swabian league was dissolved, and philip seized this favourable opportunity to interfere on behalf of his friend. the king of france promised his aid, and in germany, especially among the catholic bavarians, a strong desire prevailed to weaken the power of austria. luther's public judgment being of such weight, and his counsels so influential with the elector frederick, philip informed him, through pastor ottinger of cassel, of his preparations for war, lest he might otherwise be wrongly given to understand that he was meditating a step against the emperor. his intention, he declared, was merely to 'restore and reinstate duke ulrich to his rights in all fairness,' in the sight of god and of his imperial majesty. he 'belonged to no faction or sect:'--this, wrote ottinger, he was 'instructed by his princely highness not to conceal from luther.' the latter, however, at a conference with his elector and the landgrave at weimar, protested against a breach of the public peace, as tending to bring disgrace upon the gospel; and the elector, in consequence, kept aloof from the enterprise. philip, however, persisted, and carried it through with rapidity and success. ferdinand, being helpless in the absence of the emperor, consented, in the treaty of cadan, to the restoration of ulrich, who immediately set about a reformation of the church in würtemberg. luther recognised in this result the evident hand of god, in that, contrary to all expectation, nothing was destroyed and peace was happily restored. god would bring the work to an end. meanwhile the schmalkaldic allies clung tenaciously to their league, and were intent on still further strengthening their position and preparing themselves for all emergencies. no scruples as to whether, if the emperor should break the peace, they could venture to turn their arms against him, any longer disturbed them. the terms extorted from king ferdinand by the landgrave's victorious campaign, were also in their favour. ferdinand, in the treaty of cadan, promised to secure them against the suits which the imperial chamber, notwithstanding the religious peace, still continued to institute against them, in return for which john frederick and his allies consented to recognise his election as king of the romans. and in the interests and for the objects represented by the league, namely, to oppose a sufficiently strong and compact power to roman catholicism and its menaces, those further attempts were now made to promote internal union among the protestants, to which butzer had so unremittingly devoted his labours, and which the landgrave philip among the princes considered of the utmost value. luther, although he admitted having formed a more favourable opinion of zwingli as a man, since their personal interview at marburg, in no way altered his opinion of zwinglianism or of the general tendency of his doctrines. thus in a letter of warning sent by him in december to the burgomaster and town-council of münster, he classed zwingli with münzer and other heads of the anabaptists, as a band of fanatics whom god had judged, and pointed out that whoever once followed zwingli, münzer, or the anabaptists, would very easily be seduced into rebellion and attacks on civil government. at the beginning of the next year he published a 'letter to those at frankfort-on-the-main,' in order to counteract the zwinglian doctrines and agitations there prevailing. he also warned the people of augsburg against their preachers, inasmuch as they pretended to accept the lutheran doctrine of the sacrament, but in reality did nothing of the kind. he abstained from entering into any further controversy against the substance of doctrines opposed to his own. he was concerned not so much about the victory of his own doctrine, which he left with confidence in god's hands, but lest, under the guise of agreement with him, error should creep in and deceit be practised in a matter so sacred and important. he always felt suspicious of butzer on this point. he now saw the evil and terrible fruits of that spirit which had possessed münzer and the anabaptists,--such fruits as he had always expected from it. in münster, where his warning had passed unregarded, the anabaptists had been masters since february . as the pretended possessors of christianity in its intellectual and spiritual purity, they established there a kingdom of the saints, with a mad, sensual fanaticism, a coarse worship of the flesh, and a wild thirst for blood. this kingdom was demolished the next year by the combined forces of the emperor and the bishop, but a further consequence of their defeat was the exclusion of protestantism from the city, which submitted again to episcopal authority. about the zwinglian 'sacramentarianism' luther wrote at that time, 'god will mercifully do away with this scandal, so that it may not, like that of münster, have to be done away with by force.' butzer, however, did not allow himself to be deterred or wearied. his wish was that the agreement in doctrine which had already been arrived at between luther and the south germans admitted to the swabian league, should be publicly and emphatically acknowledged and expressed. he laboured and hoped to convince even the people of zurich and the other swiss that they attached--as, in fact, they did--too harsh a meaning to luther's doctrines, and so to induce them to reconcile them as nearly as they could with their own. but they could not be persuaded further than to admit that christ's body was really present in the sacrament, as food for the souls of those who partook in faith. they were as suspicious, from their standpoint, of his attempts at mediation, as luther was from his. butzer represented to the landgrave that the south german towns, his allies, were united in doctrine, and that the only objection raised by the swiss was to the notion that christ and his body became actual 'food for the stomach,'--a notion which luther also refused wholly to entertain. for when the latter said that christ's body was eaten with the mouth, he explained at the same time that the mouth indeed only touched the bread and did not reach this body, and that his doctrine was simply a declaration of a sacramental unity, in so far as the mouth eats the bread which is united with the body in the sacrament. the matter, said butzer, was a mere dispute about words, and was only so difficult to settle because they had 'abused and sent each other to the devil too much.' [illustration: pig. .--butzer. (from the old original woodcut of reusner.)] the landgrave philip wrote to luther, and luther now repeated with warmth his own desire for a 'well-established union,' which would enable the protestants to oppose a common front to the immoderate arrogance of the papists. he only warned him again lest the matter should remain 'rotten and unstable in its foundations.' the landgrave then arranged, with luther's approval, a conference between melancthon and butzer at cassel for december , . luther sent to them a 'consideration, whether unity is possible or not.' he repeated in this tract, with studied precision and emphasis, those tenets of his doctrine to which butzer had referred. the matter, he said, ought not to remain uncertain or ambiguous. but when butzer now agreed with luther's own opinion, and sent to him at wittenberg an explanation that christ's body was truly present, but not as food for the stomach, luther, in january , declared as his judgment, that, since the south german preachers were willing to teach in accordance with the augsburg confession, he, for his part, neither could nor would refuse such concord; and since they distinctly confessed that christ's body was really and substantially presented and eaten, he could not, if their hearts agreed with their words, find fault with these words. he would only prefer, as there was still too much mistrust among his own brethren, that the act of concord should not be concluded quite so suddenly, but that time should be allowed for a general quieting down. 'thus,' he said, 'our people will be able to moderate their suspicion or ill-will, and finally let it drop; and if thus the troubled waters are calmed on both sides, a real and permanent union can be ultimately brought about.' of the swiss no notice was taken in these negotiations. meanwhile butzer and philip had to rest content with this; and was it not an important step forwards? this work of union, together with the council which was to help in uniting the whole church, took a prominent place during the next few years of luther's life and labours. chapter ii. negotiations respecting a council and union among the protestants.--the legate vergerius .--the wittenberg concord . pope paul iii., who succeeded clement vii. in october , seemed at once determined to bring about in reality the promised council. and in fact he was quite earnest in the matter. he was not so indifferent as his predecessor to the real interests of the church and the need of certain reforms, and he hoped, like a clever politician, to turn the council, which could now no longer be evaded, to the advantage of the papacy. with this object, and with a view in particular of arranging the place where the council should be held, which he proposed should be mantua, he sent a nuncio, the cardinal vergerius, to germany. in august luther was desired by his elector to submit an opinion on the proposals of the pope. he thought it sufficient to repeat the answer he had given two years before, namely, that the prince had then fully expressed his zeal for the restoration of church unity by means of a council, but at the same time had required that its decisions should be strictly according to god's word, and declared that he could not give any definite consent without his allies. luther still declined, moreover, to believe that the project of a council was sincere. the university of wittenberg had been removed during the summer to jena, on account of a fresh outbreak of the plague, or at all events an alarm of it, and there they remained till the following february. luther, however, would not listen to the idea of leaving wittenberg. this time he could stay there in all rest and cheerfulness with bugenhagen, and make merry with the idle fears of others. to the elector, who was full of anxiety about him, luther wrote on july , saying that only one or two cases of the disease had appeared; the air was not yet poisoned. the dog-days being at hand, and the young people frightened, they might as well be allowed to walk about, to calm their thoughts, until it was seen what would happen. he noticed, however, that some had 'caught ulcers in their pockets, others colic in their books, and others gout in their papers;' some, too, had no doubt eaten their mother's letters, and hence got heart-ache and homesickness. the christian authorities, he said, must provide some strong medicine against such a disease, lest mortality might arise in consequence,--a medicine that would defy satan, the enemy of all arts and discipline. he was astonished to find how much more was known of the great plague at wittenberg in other parts than in the town itself, where in truth it did not exist, and how much bigger and fatter lies grew the farther they travelled. he assured his friend jonas, who had gone away with the university, that, thanks to god, he was living there in solitude, in perfect health and comfort; only there was a dearth of beer in the town, though he had enough in his own cellar. nor did luther afterwards give way to fear when compelled to acknowledge several fatal cases of the plague, and when his own coachman once seemed to be stricken with it. he himself was a sufferer, throughout the winter, from a cough and other catarrhic affections. 'but my greatest illness,' he wrote to a friend, 'is, that the sun has so long shone upon me,--a plague which, as you know well, is very common, and many die of it.' the papal nuncio now arrived at wittenberg, and desired to speak to luther in person. after an interview at halle with the archbishop albert, he had taken the road through wittenberg on his way to visit the elector of brandenburg at berlin. on the afternoon of november , a saturday, he entered wittenberg in state, with twenty-one horses and an ass, intending to take up his quarters there for the night, and was received with all due honour at the elector's castle by the governor metzsch. luther was invited, at the nuncio's request, to sup with him that evening, but as the former declined the invitation, he was asked with bugenhagen to take breakfast with him the next morning. it was the first time, since his summons by caietan at augsburg in , that luther had to speak with a papal legate--luther, who had long since been condemned by the pope as an abominable child of corruption, and who in turn had declared the pope to be antichrist. so important must vergerius have thought it, to attempt to influence, if even only partially, the powerful adviser of the protestant princes, and thereby to prevent him from check-mating his plans in regard to a council. and in this respect vergerius must have had considerable confidence in himself. the next morning luther ordered his barber to come at an unusually early hour. upon the latter expressing his surprise, luther said jokingly, 'i have to go to the papal nuncio; if only i look young when he sees me, he may think "fie, the devil, if luther has played us such tricks before he is an old man, what won't he do when he is one?"' then, in his best clothes and with a gold chain round his neck, he drove to the castle with the town-priest bugenhagen (pomeranus). 'here go,' he said, as he stepped into the carriage, 'the pope of germany and cardinal pomeranus, the instruments of god!' before the legate he 'acted,' as he expressed it, 'the complete luther.' he employed towards him only the most indispensable forms of civility, and made use of the most ill-humoured language. thus he asked him whether he was looked upon in italy as a drunken german. when they came to speak about the settlement of the church questions in dispute by a council, vergerius reminded him that one individual fallible man had no right to consider himself wiser than the councils, the ancient fathers, and other theologians of christendom. to this luther replied that the papists were not really in earnest about a council, and, if it were held, they would only care to treat about such trifles as monks' cowls, priests' tonsures, rules of diet, and so forth; whereupon the legate turned to one of his attendants, who was sitting by, with the words 'he has hit the right nail on the head.' luther went on to assert that they, the evangelicals, had no need of a council, being already fully assured about their own doctrine, though other poor souls might need one, who were led astray by the tyranny of the popedom. nevertheless he promised to attend the proposed council, even though he should be burned by it. it was the same to him, he said, whether it was held at mantua, padua, or florence, or anywhere else. 'would you come to bologna?' said vergerius. luther asked, thereupon, to whom bologna belonged, and on being told 'to the pope,' 'gracious heavens,' he exclaimed, 'has the pope seized that town too?--very well, i will come to you even there.' vergerius politely hinted that the pope himself, would not refuse to come to wittenberg. 'let him come,' said luther; 'we shall be very glad to see him.' 'but,' said vergerius, 'would you have him come with arms or without?' 'as he pleases,' replied luther; 'we shall be ready to receive him in either way.' when the legate, after their meal, was mounting his horse to depart, he said to luther, 'be sure to hold yourself in readiness for the council.' 'yes, sir,' was the reply, 'with this my very neck and head.' vergerius afterwards related that he had found luther to be coarse in conversation, and his latin bad, and had answered him as far as possible in monosyllables. the excuse he urged for his interview was that luther and bugenhagen were the only men of learning at wittenberg, with whom he could converse in latin. he evidently felt himself unpleasantly deceived in the expectations and projects he had formed before the meeting. ten years later, when his conflict with evangelical doctrine had taught him thoroughly its real meaning and value, this high dignitary himself became a convert to it. in the meantime, while the eyes of all were fixed upon the approaching council, the state of affairs in germany was eminently favourable to the evangelicals. the emperor, during the summer of , was detained abroad by his operations against the corsair chaireddin barbarossa in tunis, and luther rejoiced over the victory with which god blessed his arms. the king of france was threatening with fresh claims on italian territory. the jealousy between austria and bavaria still continued. with regard to the church, king ferdinand learned to value lutheranism at any rate as a barrier against the progress of the more dangerous doctrines of zwingli. john frederick journeyed in november to vienna, to receive from him at length, in the name of the emperor, the investiture of the electorship, and met with a friendly reception. under these circumstances the schmalkaldic league resolved, at a convention at schmalkald in december , to invite other states of the empire, which were not yet recognised in the religious peace as members of the augsburg confession, to join them. the dukes barnim and philip of pomerania had now accepted this confession. philip also married a sister of john frederick. luther performed the marriage service on the evening of february at torgau, and bugenhagen pronounced, the next morning, the customary benediction on the young couple, luther being prevented from doing so by a fresh attack of giddiness. the following spring a convention of the allies at frankfort-on-the-main received the duke of würtemberg, the dukes of pomerania, the princes of anhalt, and several towns into their league. outside germany, the kings of france and england sought fellowship with the allies. ecclesiastical and religious questions, of course, had first to be considered; and luther with others was called on for his advice. king francis, so many of whose evangelical subjects were complaining of oppression and persecution, was anxious, as he was now meditating a new campaign in italy, to secure an alliance with the german protestants against the emperor, and accordingly pretended with great solicitude that he had in view important reforms in the church, and would be glad of their assistance. they were invited to send melancthon and luther to him for that purpose. with these he negotiated also in person. melancthon felt himself much attracted by the prospect thus opened to him of rendering important and useful service. the elector, however, refused him permission to go, and rebuked him for having already entangled himself so far in the affair. melancthon's expectations were certainly very vain: the king only cared for his political interests, and in no case would he grant to any of his subjects the right to entertain or act upon religious convictions which ran counter to his own theory of the church. moreover, john frederick's relations with king ferdinand had by this time become so peaceful, that the elector was anxious not to disturb them by an alliance with the enemy of the emperor. melancthon, however, was much excited by his refusal and reproof; he suspected that others had maliciously intrigued against him with his prince. luther, at first moved by melancthon's wish and the entreaties of french evangelicals, had earnestly begged the elector to permit melancthon 'in the name of god to go to france.' 'who knows,' he said, 'what god may wish to do?' he was afterwards startled on his friend's account by the severe letter of the elector, but was obliged to acknowledge that the latter was right in his distrust of the affair. an alliance with england would have promised greater security, inasmuch as with henry viii. there was no longer any fear of his return to the papacy, and with regard to the proceedings about his marriage, a reconciliation with the emperor was scarcely to be expected. envoys from him appeared in in saxony and at the meeting at schmalkald. henry also wished for melancthon, in order to discuss with him matters of orthodoxy and church government, and luther again begged permission of the elector for him to go. but it was clearly seen from the negotiations conducted with the english envoys in germany, how slender were the hopes of effecting any agreement with henry viii. on the chief points, such as the doctrine of justification or of the mass, since the english monarch insisted every whit as strictly upon that catholic orthodoxy, to which he still adhered, as he did upon his opposition to papal power. luther had already in january grown sick to loathing of the futile negotiations with england: 'professing themselves to be wise, they became fools' (rom. i. ). he advised therefore, in his opinion submitted to the elector, that they should have patience with respect to england and the proper reforms in that quarter, but guarded himself against deviating on that account from the fundamental doctrines of belief, or conceding more to the king of england than they would to the emperor and the pope. as to contracting a political alliance with henry, he left that question, as a temporal matter, for the prince and his advisers to decide; but it seemed to him dangerous, where no real sympathy prevailed. how hazardous it was to have anything to do with henry viii. was shown immediately after by his conduct towards his second wife anna boleyn, whom he had executed on may , . luther called this act a monstrous tragedy. among the german protestants, however, the negotiations respecting the sacramental doctrine were happily brought to maturity in a duly formulated 'concord.' peace also was secured with the swiss, and therewith the possibility of an eventual alliance. now that luther had once felt confidence in these attempts at union, he took the work in hand himself and proceeded steadily with it. in the autumn of he sent letters to a number of south german towns, addressed to preachers and magistrates--to augsburg, strasburg, ulm, and esslingen. he proposed a meeting or conference, at which they might learn to know each other better, and see what was to be borne with, what complied with, and what winked at. he wished nothing more ardently than to be permitted to end his life, now near its close, in peace, charity, and unity of spirit with his brethren in the faith. they also should 'continue thus, helping, praying, and striving that such unity might be firm and lasting, and that the devil's jaws might be stopped, who had gloried hugely in their want of unity, crying out "ha! ha! i have won."' these letters plainly show how glad was luther now to see the good cause so advanced, and to be able to further it yet more. both in them and in his correspondence with the elector about the proposed meeting, he advised not to enlist too many associates, that there might be no restless, obstinate heads among them, to spoil the affair. he knew of such among his own adherents--men who went too far for him in the zeal of dogma. the conference was appointed to be held at eisenach in the following spring, on may , the fourth sunday after easter. luther's state of health would not permit him to undertake a journey to any distant place or in the winter. just at this time, moreover, in march , he had been tormented for weeks by a new malady, an intolerable pain in the left hip. later on, he told one of his friends that he had with christ risen from the dead at easter (april ), for he had been so ill at that time, that he firmly believed that his time had come to depart and be with christ, for which he longed. the south germans readily accepted the invitation. the strasburgers passed it on to the swiss, and specially desired that bullinger from zurich might take part in the conference. the swiss, however, who had received no direct invitation from wittenberg, declined the proposal; they wished to adhere simply to their own articles of faith, which they had just formulated anew in the so-called 'first helvetian confession,' and which had expressly acknowledged at least a spiritual nutriment to be offered in the sacramental symbols. they could not see anything to be gained by personal discussion. but they requested that their confession might be kindly shown to luther, and bullinger sent him special greetings from himself and the evangelical churches of switzerland. the preachers who were sent as deputies to eisenach from the various south german towns, journeyed by way of frankfort-on-the-main, where just then the schmalkaldic allies were assembled. on may they went on, eleven in number, to eisenach; they represented the communities of strasburg, augsburg, memmingen, ulm, esslingen, reutlingen, furfeld, and frankfort. at the last moment the whole success, nay even the very plan of the conference, was imperilled. melancthon had already been anxious and despondent, fearing a fresh and violent outburst of the controversy as a consequence of the impending discussion. luther had just been freshly excited against the zwinglians by a writing found among the papers zwingli left behind him, and which bullinger had published with high eulogiums upon the author, and also by a correspondence that had just appeared between zwingli and oecolampadius. butzer, however, and his friends still wished to maintain their intimacy with these zwinglians, and this correspondence was prefaced by an introduction 'from his own pen. furthermore, letters had reached luther, representing that the people in the south german towns were not really taught the true bodily presence in the sacrament. in addition to this, severe after-effects of his old illness again attacked him, rendering him unfit to travel to eisenach. accordingly, on may he wrote to the deputies begging them to journey as far as grimma, where he would either appear in person, or, if too weak, could at all events more easily communicate by writing to them and his friends. the deputies, however, came straight to him at wittenberg. in thuringia they were joined by the pastors menius of eisenach and myconius of gotha, two of luther's friends who with him were honestly desirous of unity. the constant personal intercourse kept up during the journey served greatly to promote a mutual understanding. thus on sunday, may , they arrived at length at wittenberg. the next day, the two strasburgers, capito and butzer, held a preliminary interview with luther, whose physical weakness made any lengthy negotiations very difficult. he expressed to them candidly and emphatically his desire, repeated again and again, that they should declare themselves at one with him. he would rather, however, leave matters as they had been, than enter into a union which might be only feigned or artificial, and must make bad worse. with regard to the zwinglian publications, butzer answered that he and his friends were in no way responsible for them, and that the preface, which consisted of a letter from himself, had been printed without his knowledge and consent. with regard to the doctrine of the sacrament, the only question now left to decide was whether the unworthy and godless communicants verily partook of the lord's body. luther maintained that they did: it was to him the necessary consequence of a bodily presence, such as took place simply by virtue of the institution and sure promise of christ, by which faith must abide in full trust and belief. butzer expressed his decided assent to the doctrine of objective presence and presentation; but the actual reception of the lord's body, as offered from above, he could only concede to those communicants who, at least through some faith, placed themselves in an inward spiritual relation to that body and accepted the institution of christ, not to those who were simply there with their bodies and bodily mouths. to enable one to speak of a partaking of the body, he was satisfied with that faith which was not exactly the right faith of the heart, and was connected with moral unworthiness, so that such guests ate to their own condemnation. he thus acknowledged that the unworthy, but not the man wholly devoid of faith, could partake of the body and blood of christ. luther, therefore, could feel assured that butzer agreed with him in rejecting every view which held that, in the sacrament, the body of christ was present only in the subjective representation and the imagination, or that faith there rose up out of itself, so to speak, to the lord, instead of merely grasping at what was offered, and thereby being quickened and made strong. but it is unmistakable, that luther and butzer conceived in different ways both the manner of the presence and the manner of partaking,--each of these, indeed, in a mysterious sense and one very difficult to be defined. luther could scarcely have failed to observe the difference, which still remained between them, and the defect from which, according to his own convictions, the doctrine of the south germans still suffered. the question was, whether he could look beyond this, and whether in the doctrine for which he had fought so keenly, he should be able and willing to distinguish between what was essential on the one hand, and what was non-essential or less essential on the other. on the tuesday all the deputies assembled at his house, together with his wittenberg friends, and menius and myconius. butzer having spoken on the deputies' behalf, luther conferred with them separately, and after they had declared their unanimous concurrence with butzer, he withdrew with his friends into another room for a private consultation. on his return, he declared, on behalf of himself and his friends, that, after having heard from all present their answers and statement of belief, they were agreed with them, and welcomed them as beloved brethren in the lord. as to the objection they had about the godless partakers, if they confessed that the unworthy received with the other communicants the body of christ, they would not quarrel on that point. luther, so myconius tells us, spoke these words with great spirit and animation, as was apparent from his eyes and his whole countenance. capito and butzer could not refrain from tears. all stood with folded hands and gave thanks to god. on the following days other points were discussed, such as the significance of infant baptism, and the practice of confession and absolution, as to which an understanding was necessary, and was arrived at without any difficulty. the south germans had also to be reassured about some individual forms of worship, unimportant in themselves, and which they found to have been retained from catholic usage in the saxon churches. on the thursday the proceedings were interrupted by the festival of the ascension. luther preached the evening sermon of that day on the text, 'go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.' myconius relates of this sermon, 'i have often heard luther before, but it seemed to me then as if not he alone were speaking, but heaven was thundering in the name of christ.' on saturday butzer and capito delivered themselves of their commissions on behalf of the swiss. luther declared after reading the confession which they brought, that certain expressions in it were objectionable, but added a wish that the strasburgers would treat with them further the subject, and the latter led him to hope that the communities in switzerland, weary of dispute, desired unity. the spirit of brotherly union received a touching and beautiful expression on the sunday in the common celebration of the sacrament, and in sermons preached by alber of reutlingen in the early morning, and by butzer in the middle of the day. the next morning, may , the meeting concluded with the signing of the articles which melancthon had been commissioned to draw up. they recognised the receiving of christ's body at the sacrament by those who 'ate unworthily,' without saying anything about the faithless. the deputies who signed their names declared their common acceptance of the augsburg confession and the apology. this formula, however, was only to be published after it had received the assent of the communities whom it concerned, together with their pastors and civil authorities. 'we must be careful,' said luther, 'not to raise the song of victory prematurely, nor give others an occasion for complaining that the matter was settled without their knowledge and in a corner.' luther himself began on the same monday to write letters, inviting assent from different quarters to their proceedings. among his own associates, at any rate, his intimate friend amsdorf at magdeburg had not been so conciliatory as himself: luther waited eight days before informing him of the result of the conference. thus, then, unity of confession was established for the german protestants, apart from the swiss, for none of the churches which had been represented at the meeting refused their assent. luther now advanced a step towards the swiss by writing to the burgomaster meyer at basle, who was particularly anxious for union, and who returned him a very friendly and hopeful answer. butzer sought to work with them further in the same direction. but they could not reconcile themselves to the wittenberg articles. they--that is to say, the magistrates and clergy of zurich, berne, basle, and some other towns--were content to express their joy at luther's present friendly state of mind, together with a hope of future unity, and besought butzer to inform luther further about their own confession and their objections to his own. butzer was anxious to do this at a convention which the schmalkaldic allies appointed to meet at schmalkald, in view of the council having been announced to be held in february . chapter iii. negotiations respecting a council and union among the protestants (continuation):--meeting at schmalkald, .--peace with the swiss.--luther's feiendship with the bohemian brethren. a few days after the protestants had effected an agreement at wittenberg the announcement was issued from rome of a council, to be held at mantua in the following year. the pope already indicated with sufficient clearness the action he intended to take at it. he declared in plain terms that the council was to extirpate the lutheran pestilence, and did not even wish that the corrupt lutheran books should be laid before it, but only extracts from them, and these with a catholic refutation. luther, therefore, had now to turn his energies at once in this direction. he agreed, nevertheless, with melancthon that the invitation should be accepted, although the elector john frederick was opposed to such a council from the very first. it would be better, luther thought, to protest at the council itself against any unlawful or unjust proceeding. he hoped to be able to speak before the assembly at least like a christian and a man. the elector thereupon commissioned him to compile and set forth the propositions or articles of faith, which, according to his conviction, it would be necessary to insist on at the council, and directed him to call in for this purpose other theologians to his assistance. luther accordingly drew up a statement. a few days after christmas he laid it before his wittenberg colleagues, and likewise before amsdorf of magdeburg, spalatin of altenburg, and agricola of eisleben. the last named was endeavouring to exchange his post at the high school at eisleben, under the count of mansfeld, with whom he had fallen out, for a professor's chair at wittenberg, which had been promised him by the elector; and now, on receiving his invitation to the conference, he left eisleben for good without permission, taking his wife and child with him. luther welcomed him as an old friend and invited him to his house as a guest. luther's statement was unanimously approved, and sent to the elector on january . even in this summary of belief, intended as it was for common acceptance and for submission to a council, luther emphasised, with all the fulness and keenness peculiar to himself throughout the struggle, his antagonism to roman catholic dogma and churchdom. fondly as he clung at that time to reconciliation among the protestants, he saw no possibility of peace with rome. as the first and main article he declared plainly that faith alone in jesus could justify a man; on that point they dared not yield, though heaven and earth should fall. the mass he denounced as the greatest and most horrible abomination, inasmuch as it was 'downright destructive of the first article,' and as the chiefest of papal idolatries; moreover, this dragon's tail had begotten many other kinds of vermin and abominations of idolatry. with regard to the papacy itself, the augsburg confession had been content to condemn it by silence, not having taken any notice of it in its articles on the essence and nature of the christian church. luther now would have it acknowledged, 'that the pope was not by divine right (_jure divino_) or by warrant of god's word the head of all christendom,' that position belonging to one alone, by name jesus christ; and, furthermore, 'that the pope was the true antichrist, who sets himself up and exalts himself above and against christ.' as for the council, he expected that the evangelicals there present would have to stand before the pope himself and the devil, who would listen to nothing, but consider simply how to condemn and kill them. they should, therefore, not kiss the feet of their enemy, but say to him, 'the lord rebuke thee, satan!' (zach. iii. ). the allies accordingly were anxious to consult together and determine at schmalkald what conduct to pursue at the council. an imperial envoy and a papal nuncio wished also to attend their meeting. the princes and representatives of the towns brought their theologians with them to the number of about forty in all. the elector john frederick brought luther, melancthon, bugenhagen, and spalatin. on january the wittenberg theologians were summoned by their prince to torgau. from thence they travelled slowly by grimma and altenburg, where they were entertained with splendour at the prince's castles, then by weimar, where, on sunday, february , luther preached a sermon, and so on to the place of meeting. luther had left his family and house in the care of his guest agricola. on february they arrived at schmalkald. the theologians at first were left unemployed. the members of the convention only gradually assembled. the envoy of the emperor came on the th. luther made up his mind for a stay there of four weeks. he preached on the th in the town church before the prince himself. the church he found, as he wrote to jonas, so large and lofty, that his voice sounded to him like that of a mouse. during the first few days he enjoyed the leisure and rejoiced in the healthy air and situation of the place. he was already suffering, however, from the stone, which had once before attacked him. a medical friend ascribed it partly to the dampness of the inns and the sheets he slept in. however, the attack passed off easily this time, and on the th he was able to tell jonas that he was better. but he grew very tired of the idle time at schmalkald. he said jokingly about the good entertainment there, that he and his friends were living with the landgrave philip and the duke of würtemberg like beggars, who had the best bakers, ate bread and drank wine with the nürembergers, and received their meat and fish from the elector's court. they had the best trout in the world, but they were cooked in a sauce with the other fish; and so on. the elector soon applied to him for an opinion as to taking part in the council, which luther again recommended should not be bluntly refused. a refusal, he said, would exactly please the pope, who wished for nothing so much as obstacles to the council; it was for this reason that, in speaking of the extirpation of heresy, he held up the evangelicals as a 'bugbear,' in order to frighten them from the project. good people might likewise object, on the ground that the troubles with the turks and the emperor's engagement in the war with france, were made use of by the evangelicals to refuse the council, whilst in reality the knaves at borne were reckoning on the turkish and french wars to prevent the council from coming to pass. luther now received through butzer the communications from switzerland, together with a letter from meyer, the burgomaster of basle. to the latter he sent on the th of the month a cheerful and friendly reply. he did not wish to induce him to make any further explanations and promises, but his whole mind was bent upon mutual forgiveness, and bearing with one another in patience and gentleness. in this spirit he earnestly entreated meyer to work with him. 'will you faithfully exhort your people,' he said, 'that they may all help to quiet, soften, and promote the matter to the best of their power, that they may not scare the birds at roost.' he promised also, for his part, 'to do his utmost in the same direction.' this same day, however, luther's malady returned; he concluded his letter with the words, 'i cannot write now all i would, for i have been a useless man all day, owing to this painful stone.' the next day, sunday, when he preached a powerful sermon before a large congregation, the malady became much worse, and a week followed of violent pain, during which his body swelled, he was constantly sick, and his weakness generally increased. several doctors, including one called in from erfurt, did their utmost to relieve him. 'they gave me physic,' he said afterwards, 'as if i were a great ox.' mechanical contrivances were employed, but without effect.' i was obliged,' he said, 'to obey them, that it might not look as if i neglected my body.' his condition appeared desperate. with death before his eyes, he thought of his arch-enemy the pope, who might triumph over this, but over whom he felt certain of victory even in death. 'behold,' he cried to god, 'i die an enemy of thy enemies, cursed and banned by thy foe, the pope. may he, too, die under thy ban, and both of us stand at thy judgment bar on that day.' the elector, deeply moved, stood by his bed, and expressed his anxiety lest god might take away with luther his beloved word. luther comforted him by saying that there were many faithful men who, by god's help, would become a wall of strength; nevertheless, he could not conceal from the prince his apprehension that, after he was gone, discord would arise even among his colleagues at wittenberg. the elector promised him to care for his wife and children as his own. luther's natural love for them, as he afterwards remarked, made the prospect of parting very hard for him to bear. to his sorrowing friends he still was able to be humorous. when melancthon, on seeing him, began to cry bitterly, he reminded him of a saying of their friend, the hereditary marshal, hans löser, that to drink good beer was no art, but to drink sour beer, and then continued, in the words of job, 'what, shall we receive good at the hand of god, and shall we not receive evil?' and again: 'the wicked jews,' he said, 'stoned stephen; my stone, the villain! is stoning me.' but not for an instant did he lose his trust in god and resignation to his will. when afraid of going mad with the pain, he comforted himself with the thought that christ was his wisdom, and that god's wisdom remained immutable. seeing, as he did, the devil at work in his torture, he felt confident that even if the devil tore him to pieces christ would revenge his servant, and god would tear the devil to pieces in return. only one thing he would fain have prayed his god to grant--that he might die in the country of his elector; but he was willing and ready to depart whenever god might summon him. upon being seized with a fit of vomiting he sighed, 'alas, dear father, take the little soul into thy hand; i will be grateful to thee for it. go hence, thou dear little soul, go, in god's name!' at length an attempt was actually made to remove him to gotha, the necessary medical appliances being not procurable at schmalkald. on the th of the month the erfurt physician, sturz, drove him thither, together with bugenhagen, spalatin, and myconius, in one of the elector's carriages. another carriage followed them, with instruments and a pan of charcoal, for warming cloths. on driving off, luther said to his friends about him,' the lord fill you with his blessing, and with hatred of the pope.' the first day they could not venture farther than tambach, a few miles distant, the road over the mountains being very rough. the jolting of the carriage caused him intolerable torture. but it effected what the doctors could not. the following night the pain was terminated, and the feeling of relief and recovery made him full of joy and thankfulness. a messenger was sent at once, at two o'clock in the morning, with the news to schmalkald, and luther himself wrote a letter to his 'dearly-loved' melancthon. to his wife he wrote saying, 'i have been a dead man, and had commended you and the little ones to god and to our good lord jesus.... i grieved very much for your sakes.' but god, he went on to say, had worked a miracle with him; he felt like one newly-born; she must thank god, therefore, and let the little ones thank their heavenly father, without whom they would assuredly have lost their earthly one. but on the th already, after his safe arrival at gotha, he suffered so severe a relapse that during that night he thought, from his extreme weakness, that his end was near. he then gave to bugenhagen some last directions, which the latter afterwards committed to writing, as the 'confession and last testament of the venerable father.' herein luther expressed his cheerful conviction that he had done rightly in attacking the papacy with the word of god. he begged his 'dearest philip' (melancthon) and other colleagues to forgive anything in which he might have offended them. to his faithful kate he sent words of thanks and comfort, saying that now for the twelve years of happiness which they had spent together, she must accept this sorrow. once more he sent greetings to the preachers and burghers of wittenberg. he begged his elector and the landgrave not to be disturbed by the charges made against them by the papists of having robbed the property of the church, and recommended them to trust to god in their labours on behalf of the gospel. the next morning, however, he was again better and stronger. butzer, who in regard to unity of confession and his relations with the swiss had not been able to have any further conversation with luther at schmalkald, had at once, on receiving the good news from tambach, gone straight to luther at gotha, accompanied by the preacher wolfhart from augsburg. luther, notwithstanding his suffering, now discussed with them this matter, so important in his eyes. as an honest man, to whom nothing was so distasteful as 'dissimulation,' he earnestly warned them against all 'crooked ways.' the swiss, in case he died, should be referred to his letter to meyer; should god allow him to live and become strong, he would send them a written statement himself. while, however, he was still at gotha, the crisis of his illness passed, and he was relieved entirely of the cause of his suffering. the journey was continued cautiously and slowly, and a good halt was made at weimar. from wittenberg there came to nurse him a niece, who lived in his house: probably lene kaufmann, the daughter of his sister. to his wife he wrote from tambach, telling her that she need not accept the elector's offer to drive her to him, it being now unnecessary. on march he arrived again at his home. his recovery had made good progress, though, as he wrote to spalatin, even eight days afterwards his legs could hardly support him. meanwhile the conference of the allies at schmalkald resulted in their deciding to decline the papal invitation to the council. they informed the emperor, in reply, that the council which the pope had in view was something very different to the one so long demanded by the german diets; what they wanted was a free council, and one on german, not italian territory. with regard to luther's articles, which he had drawn up in view of a council, they saw no occasion to occupy themselves with their consideration. to their official confession of augsburg, which had formed among other things the groundwork and charter of the religious peace, and to the apology, drawn up by melancthon in reply to the catholic 'refutation,' they desired, however, now to add a protest against the authority and the divine right of the papacy. melancthon prepared it in the true spirit of luther, though in a calmer and more moderate tone than was usual with his friend. the majority of the theologians present at schmalkald testified their assent to luther's articles by subscribing their names. luther had his statement printed the following year. the emperor, on account of the war with the turks and the renewal of hostilities with france, had no time to think of compelling the allies to take part in a council, and was quite content that no council should be held at all. whether the pope himself, as luther supposed, counted secretly on this result, and was glad to see it happen, may remain a matter of uncertainty. at schmalkald the seal was now set upon the concord, which had been concluded the previous year at wittenberg, and then submitted for ratification to the different german princes and towns, the formula there adopted being now signed by all the theologians present, and the agreement of the princes to abide by it being duly announced. towards the swiss, who declined to waive their objections to the wittenberg articles, luther maintained firmly the standpoint indicated in his letter to meyer. thus, in the following december he wrote himself to those evangelical centres in switzerland from which butzer had brought him the communication to gotha; while the next year, in may , he sent a friendly reply to a message from bullinger, and again in june he wrote once more to the swiss, on receiving an answer from them to his first letter. his constant wish and entreaty was that they should at least be friendly to, and expect the best of one another, until the troubled waters were calmed. he fully acknowledged that the swiss were a very pious people, who earnestly wished to do what was right and proper. he rejoiced at this, and hoped that god, even if only a hedge obstructed, would help in time to remove all errors. but he could not ignore or disregard that on which no agreement had yet been arrived at; and he was right in supposing, and said so openly to the swiss, that upon their side, as well as upon his own, there were many who looked upon unity not only with displeasure but even with suspicion. he himself had constantly to explain misinterpretations of his doctrine, and he did so with composure. he had never, he said, taught that christ, in order to be present at the sacrament, comes down from heaven; but he left to divine omnipotence the manner in which his body is verily given to the guests at his table. but he must guard himself, on the other hand, against the notion that, with the attitude he now adopted, he had renounced his former doctrine. and with this doctrine he held firmly to the conception of a presence of christ's body in the sacrament different to and apart from that presence for purely spiritual nourishment on which the swiss now insisted. when bullinger expressed his surprise that he should still talk of a difference in doctrine, he gave up offering any more explanations on the subject; and the swiss, for their part, after his second letter, made no further attempt to effect a more perfect agreement. luther's desire was to keep on terms of peace and friendship with them, notwithstanding the difference still notoriously existing between both parties. on this very account he was loth to rake up the difference again by further explanations. by acting thus he believed he should best promote an ultimate understanding and unity, which was still the object of his hopes. so far, therefore, during the years immediately following the death of zwingli, success had attended the efforts to heal the fatal division which separated from luther and the great lutheran community those of evangelical sympathies in switzerland and the south germans, who were more or less subject to their influence, and which had excited the minds on both sides with such violence and passion. so far luther himself had laboured to promote this result with uprightness and zeal; he had conquered much suspicion once directed against himself, he had sought means of peace; he had restrained the disturbing zeal of his own friends and followers, such as amsdorf or osiander at nüremberg. we must not omit finally to mention, as an important event of these years and a testimony to luther's disposition and sentiments, the friendly relations now formed between himself and the so-called bohemian and moravian brethren. we have already had occasion to notice, after the leipzig disputation in , and again, in particular, after luther's return from the wartburg, an approach, which promised much but was only transitory, between luther and the large and powerful brotherhood of the bohemian utraquists, who, as admirers of huss and advocates for giving the cup to the laity, had freed themselves from the dominion of rome. quietly and modestly, but with a far more penetrating endeavour to restore the purity of christian life, the small communities of the moravian brethren had multiplied by the side of the hussites, and had patiently endured oppression and persecution. luther afterwards declared of them, how he had found to his astonishment--a thing unheard of under the papacy--that, discarding the doctrines of men, they meditated day and night, to the best of their ability, on the laws of god, and were well versed in the scriptures. it was principally, however, as luther himself seems to indicate, the commands of scripture, in the strict and faithful fulfilment of which they sought for true christianity--with special reference to the commands of jesus, as expressed by him in particular in the sermon on the mount, and to those precepts which they found in their patterns, the oldest apostolic communities--that engrossed their attention. with strict discipline, in conformity with these commands, they sought to order and sanctify their congregational life. but of luther's doctrine of salvation, announced by him mainly on the testimony of st. paul, or of the doctrine of justification by faith alone, they had as yet no knowledge. they taught of the righteousness to which christians should attain, as did augustine and the pious, practical theologians of the middle ages. hence they were wanting also in freedom in their conception of moral life, and of those worldly duties and blessings to which, according to luther, the christian spirit rose by the power of faith. they shunned rather all worldly business in a manner that caused luther to ascribe to them a certain monastic character. their priests lived, like catholics, in celibacy. another peculiarity of their teaching was, that in striving after a more spiritual conception of life, and under the influence of the writings of the great englishman wicliffe, which were largely disseminated among them, they repudiated the catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, nor would even allow such a presence of christ's body as was insisted on by luther. they maintained simply a sacramental, spiritual, effectual presence of christ, and distinguished from it a substantial presence, which his body, they declared, had in heaven alone. with these, too, as with the utraquists, luther became more closely acquainted soon after his return from the wartburg. the evangelical preacher, paul speratus, who was then temporarily working in moravia, wrote to him about these zealous friends of the gospel, among whom, however, he found much that was objectionable, especially their doctrine of the sacrament. they themselves sent luther messages, letters, and writings. luther, who, in addition to the catholic theory, had also to combat doubts as to the real presence of christ's body at the sacrament, turned in , in a treatise 'on the adoration of the sacrament, &c.,' to oppose the declarations of the brethren on this subject, and then proceeded to draw their attention to other points on which he was unable to agree with them, in the mildest form and with warm acknowledgments of their good qualities, such as, in particular, their strict requirements of christian moral conduct, which in his own circle he could not possibly expect to see as yet fulfilled. they and lucas, their elder, however, took umbrage at his remarks; lucas published a reply, whereupon luther quietly left them to go their own way. while butzer now was prosecuting with success his attempts at union, the brethren renewed their overtures to luther. they offered him fresh explanations about the doctrines in dispute, and these explanations he was content to treat as consistent with the truth which he himself maintained, though they differed even from his own actual statements, not only in form but in substance. for example, they distinguished between the presence of christ's body in the sacrament and his existence in heaven, by describing only the latter as a bodily existence. practically, the theory of the brethren, which, however, was by no means clearly defined, agreed most with that represented afterwards by calvin. but luther saw in it nothing more that was essential, such as would necessitate further controversy, or deter him from friendly intercourse with these pious-minded people. at their desire he published two of their statements of belief in and with prefaces from his own pen. in these prefaces he dwelt particularly on the striking differences, as regards church usages and regulations, between their congregations and his own. but these differences, he said, ought in no way to prevent their fellowship; a difference of usages had always existed among christian churches, and with the difference of times and circumstances, was unavoidable. nor did he withhold a certain sanction and approbation of the dignity with which the brethren continued to invest the state of celibacy, while refusing, however, to give that sanction the force of a law. among the brethren their gifted and energetic elder john augusta laboured to promote an alliance with luther and the german reformation. he repeatedly appeared (and again in ) in person at wittenberg. thus on all sides, wherever the evangelical word prevailed, luther saw the bonds of union being firmly tied. chapter iv. other labours and transactions, - .--archbishop albert and schÖnitz.--agricola. amidst these important and general affairs of the church, bringing daily fresh labours and fresh anxieties for luther--labours, however, which, in spite of his bodily sufferings, he undertook with his old accustomed energy--his strength, as in previous years we have observed with reference to his preaching, now no longer sufficed as before for the regular work of his calling. in his official duties at the university the elector himself, anxiously concerned as he was for its progress, would have spared him as much as possible. for these he arranged, in , an ample stipend. in his announcement of this step he solemnly declared: 'the merciful god has plenteously and graciously vouchsafed to let his holy, redeeming word, through the teaching of the reverend and most learned, our beloved and good martin luther, doctor of holy scripture, be made known to all men in these latter days of the world with true christian understanding, for their comfort and salvation, for which we give him praise and thanks for ever; and has made known also, in addition to other arts, the latin, greek, and hebrew languages, through the conspicuous and rare ability and industry of the learned philip melancthon, for the furtherance of the right and christian comprehension of holy scripture.' to each of these two men he now gave a hundred gulden as an addition to his salary as professor, which in luther's case had hitherto amounted to two hundred gulden. at the same time he released luther from the obligation of lecturing, and, indeed, from all his other duties at the university. luther began, however, this year a new and important course of lectures--the exposition of the book of genesis, which, according to his wont, he illustrated with a copious and valuable commentary on the chief points of christian doctrine and christian life. they progressed, however, but slowly and with many interruptions; sometimes a whole year was occupied with only a few chapters. the work was not completed until . they were the last lectures he delivered. in the office of preacher, which he continued to fill voluntarily and without emolument, he undertook again, after he had returned from schmalkald, and had gained fresh strength and, at least, a temporary recovery from his recent illness, labours at once beyond and more arduous than his ordinary duties. he resumed, in short, the duties of bugenhagen, who was given leave of absence till to visit denmark, for the purpose of organising there, under the new king christian iii., the new evangelical church. he preached regularly on week-days, in addition to his sunday sermons; continuing his discourses, as bugenhagen had done, though with many interruptions, on the gospels of st. matthew and st. john. the chancellor brück wrote to the elector from wittenberg on august : 'doctor martin preaches in the parish church thrice a week; and such mightily good sermons are they, that it seems to me, as everyone is saying, there has never been such powerful preaching here before. he points out in particular the errors of the popedom, and multitudes come to hear him. he closes his sermons with a prayer against the pope, his cardinals and bishops, and for our emperor, that god may give him victory and deliver him from the popedom.' among his literary labours he again took in hand in his german translation of the bible--the most important work, in its way, of all his life--and persevered with intense and unremitting industry, in order to revise it thoroughly for a new edition, which was published at the end of two years. for this work he assembled around him a circle of learned colleagues, whose assistance he succeeded in obtaining and whom he regularly consulted. these were melancthon, jonas, bugenhagen, cruciger, matthew aurogallus, professor of hebrew, and afterwards the chaplain rörer, who attended to the corrections. from outside also some joined them, such as ziegler, the leipzig theologian, a man learned in hebrew. luther's younger friend mathesius, who had been luther's guest in , relates of these meetings how 'doctor luther came to them with his old bible in latin and his new one in german, and besides these he had always the hebrew text with him. philip (melancthon) brought with him the greek text, dr. kreuziger (cruciger) besides the hebrew, the chaldaic bible (the translation or paraphrase in use among the ancient jews); the professors had with them their rabbis (the rabbinical writings of the old testament). each one had previously armed himself with a knowledge of the text, and compared the greek and latin with the jewish version. the president then propounded a text, and let the opinions go round;--speeches of wondrous truth and beauty are said to have been made at these sittings.' in other respects luther's literary activity was chiefly devoted to the great questions remaining to be dealt with at a council. in , the year after his publication of the schmalkaldic articles, appeared a larger treatise from his pen 'on councils and churches,' one of the most exhaustive of his writings, and important to us as showing how firmly and confidently his idea of the christian church, as a community of the faithful, was maintained amidst all the practical difficulties which events prepared. he complains of the substitution of the blind, unmeaning word 'church'--and that even in the catechism for the young--for the greek word in the new testament 'ecclesia,' as the name of the community or assembly of christian people. much misery, he said, had crept in under that word church, from its being understood as consisting of the pope and the bishops, priests, and monks. the christian church was simply the mass of pious christian people, who believed in christ and were endowed with the holy spirit, who daily sanctified them by the forgiveness of sins, and by absolving and purifying them therefrom. of luther's love for his german mother-language, and of the services he rendered it, so conspicuously shown by these his writings, and especially by his persevering industry in his translation of the bible, we are further reminded by a request he made in a letter of march , to his friend wenzeslaus link at nüremberg. he suddenly in that letter breaks off from the latin--which was still the customary language of correspondence between theologians--and continues in german, with the words, 'i will speak german, my dear herr wenzel,' and then begs his friend to make his servant collect for him all the german pictures, rhymes, books, and ballads that had recently been published at nüremberg, as he wished to familiarise himself more with the genuine language of the people. luther himself made a goodly collection of german proverbs. his original manuscript which contained them was inherited by a german family, but unfortunately it was bought about twenty years ago in england. there was published also at wittenberg, in , a small anonymous book on german names, written (unquestionably by luther) in latin, and therefore intended for students. it contains, it is true, many strange mistakes, but it is, nevertheless, a proof of the interest he took in such studies, and is interesting as a maiden effort in this field of national learning. in the regular government and legal administration of his saxon church, luther did not occupy any post of office. when in a consistory was established at wittenberg for the electoral district, and afterwards, indeed, for the regulation of marriage and discipline, he did not become a member; he was certainly never called upon or qualified to take part in the exercise of such a jurisdiction. and yet this also was done with his concurrence, and in cases of difficulty he was resorted to for his advice. all church questions of public interest continued, with this exception, to occupy his independent and influential discussion. and even the moral evils on the domain of civil, municipal and social life, to which luther at the beginning of the reformation appeared desirous of extending his preaching of reform, so far, at least, as that preaching represented a general call and exhortation, but which he afterwards seemed to discard altogether as something foreign to his mission, never wholly faded from his purview, or ceased to enlist his active interest. he wrote again in against usury, much as he had written at an earlier period, remarking to his friends that his book would prick the consciences of petty usurers, but that the big swindlers would only laugh at him in their sleeves. and in publishing his schmalkaldic articles he briefly refers again in his preface to the 'countless matters of importance' which a genuine christian council would have to mend in the temporal condition of mankind--such as the disunion of princes and states, the usury and avarice, which had spread like a deluge and had become the law, and the sins of unchastity, gluttony, gambling, vanity in dress, disobedience on the part of subjects, servants, and workmen of all trades; as also the removal of peasants, &c. nor at the same time was he less prompt to interfere on behalf of individuals who were suffering from want and injustice, either by his humble intercession with their lords, or with the sharp sword of his denunciation. it was luther's indignation and zeal on such an occasion that caused now his irremediable rupture with the archbishop, cardinal albert, and induced him to attack that magnate as recklessly as he did; for the cardinal had hitherto been always disposed to treat him with a certain respect; and luther, on his side, had refrained at least from any open exhibition of hostility. the immediate cause of this rupture was a judicial murder, perpetrated against one john schönitz (or schanz) of halle, on the river saale. this man had for years had the charge, as the confidential servant of the archbishop, of the public and even the private funds which his master required for his stately palaces, his luxury, and his sensual enjoyments, refined or coarse, legitimate or illegitimate; and had actually lent him large sums. the estates of the archbishopric complained of the demands made on them for money, and rightly suspected that the funds supplied were improperly and dishonestly misappropriated. schönitz grew alarmed on account of the clandestine 'practices' which he was carrying on for his master. the latter, however, assured him of his protection. but when the estates refused to grant any more subsidies until a proper account was laid before them, he basely sacrificed his servant in order to extricate himself from his embarrassment. for deceptions alleged to have been practised against himself, he had schönitz arrested, and confined, in september , in the castle of giebichenstein. in vain schönitz demanded a public trial by impartial judges; in vain did the imperial court of justice give judgment in his favour. a second judgment of the court was answered by albert's directing the prisoner, who was a citizen of halle and sprung from an old local family, to be tried on june , , at giebichenstein, by a peasant tribunal hastily summoned from the surrounding villages, for the trial merely, as the rumour ran in halle, of a horse-stealer. the unhappy prisoner was allowed no regular defence, and no counsel. an admission of guilt was extorted from him by the rack, and he was summarily sentenced to death. time was only allowed him to say to the bystanders that he confessed himself a sinner in the sight of god, but that he had not deserved this fate. he was quickly strung up on the gallows, where his corpse remained hanging till the wind blew it down in february . albert took possession of his property. and this was done by the supreme prince of the roman church in germany, who played the part of a modern mæcenas with regard to art and science. whilst now the justices of the town of halle were protesting against this treatment of their fellow-townsman to the archbishop, who turned a deaf ear to their remonstrance, and antony, the brother of the murdered man, exerted himself in vain to vindicate his honour and the rights of their family, luther was drawn into the affair by the fact that one of his guests, ludwig rabe, was threatened with punishment by albert, for expressions he let fall soon after the deed was committed. luther thereupon wrote several times to albert himself, and told him openly he was a murderer, and, for his squandering of church property, deserved a gallows ten times higher than the castle of giebichenstein. he was restrained, however, from taking further steps by the elector of brandenburg and other of albert's influential relatives, who appealed to john frederick on his behalf, whilst albert sought to make a cheap compensation to the family of the murdered man, or at least pretended to do so. when, however, a young humanist poetaster at wittenberg, named lemnius--properly lemchen--actually glorified the archbishop in verse, or, as luther put it, 'made a saint of the devil,' and at the same time vilified some men and women at wittenberg, luther read aloud from the pulpit, in , a short indictment, couched in the plainest possible terms, against the shameless libeller, as also against the archbishop whom he glorified; and this indictment soon appeared in print. and now he no longer refrained from taking up the cause of schönitz in a pamphlet of some length. when the duke of prussia endeavoured once more in a friendly way to dissuade him from his purpose, for the honour of the house of brandenburg, he replied, 'wicked sons have sprung from the noble race of david, and princes ought not to disgrace themselves by unprincely vices.' in the pamphlet to his opening he declared that a stone was lying upon his heart which was called 'deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain' (prov. xxiv. ). he denounced the contempt and denial of justice of which the archbishop was guilty, and at the same time boldly exposed the real objects of those private expenses which the archbishop, together with his servant, had incurred, and of which the latter was naturally unable to give an account--least of all, those that ministered to his carnal appetites, such as his establishment at morizburg in halle. he himself, says luther, does not judge the cardinal; he is simply the bearer of the sentence pronounced by the great judge in heaven. to those who might perhaps have taken exception to his words he says, 'i sit here at wittenberg, and ask my most gracious lord the elector for no further favour or protection than what is given to all alike.' albert found it more prudent to keep silent. but what disturbed and grieved luther more than anything else during this, the closing chapter of his life, was the bitter experience he had yet to make in his own religious community, nay, amidst his most intimate companions and friends. the way of life--in other words, the way of saving faith--was now rediscovered and clearly brought to light; and, as luther said, a truly moral life should be the consequence. and great pains were taken to stamp this new truth clearly and distinctly on doctrine, and to guard against new errors and perversions. differences, however, now arose among those who had hitherto worked so loyally together for the establishment of the faith--a beginning of those doctrinal disputes which after luther's death became so disastrous to his church. again and again luther bitterly complained of the moral wrongs and scandals which proved that the faith, however widely its confession had spread through germany, was far from living in its purity and strength in the hearts of men, and bearing the expected fruit. only his own conviction, his own faith was never shaken by this result. it must needs be, as christ himself had said, that offences must come; and, in the words of st. paul ( cor. xi. ), 'there must be also heresies,' and false teachers and deceivers must arise. [illustration: fig. .--agricola. (from a miniature portrait by cranach, in the university album at wittenberg, .)] we have seen above how cordially luther welcomed agricola back at wittenberg after throwing up his appointment at eisleben. he obtained for him from the elector in an ample salary, to enable him to fill the long-coveted office of teacher at the university, and be a preacher as well. it soon became known that agricola persisted in maintaining that doctrine of repentance in defence of which he had attacked melancthon at the first visitation of churches in the saxon electorate. he had been accused of this at eisleben, and count albert of mansfeld, whose service he had quitted with rudeness and discontent, denounced him as a restless and dangerous fellow. and now at wittenberg also agricola had some sermons printed, and some theses circulated, embodying a statement of his peculiar doctrine. luther considered it his duty to refute these, and he did so from the pulpit, but without naming their author. the proclamation of god's law, so agricola now taught, was no necessary part of christianity, as such, nor of the way of salvation prepared and revealed by christ. the gospel of the son of god, our saviour, this alone should be proclaimed, and operate in touching the hearts of men and exposing the true character of their sins as sinfulness against the son of god. in this way he sought to give full effect to the fundamental evangelical doctrine, that the grace of god alone had power to save through the joyful message of christ. the personal vanity, however, which was the chief weakness of this gifted, intellectual, and fairly eloquent man, and which was now increased by the dissatisfaction it had caused at eisleben, displayed itself further in the assertion of his eccentricities of dogma. moreover, he was far from clear in his first principles, and while maintaining his tenets he was unwilling to stake too much on his own account, and yet refused actually to abandon them. he came at first to an understanding with luther by offering an explanation which the latter deemed satisfactory, but he then proceeded to revert to his peculiar tenets in a new publication. luther now launched a sharp reply against these antinomian theses, as well as against others, which went much further, and whose origin is unknown. he found wanting in agricola that earnest moral appreciation of the law, and of the moral demands made of us by god, whereby the heart of the sinner, as he himself had experienced, must first be bruised and broken, and thus opened to receive the word of grace, before that word can truly renew, revive, and sanctify it. but together with agricola's tenets he then placed the others, betraying an equally frivolous estimate of the real nature of those demands and of the duties they entailed, as evidence of one tendency and one character, since agricola, indeed, taught like them, that the good willed by god in his commandments was fulfilled in christians by the simple fact of their belief in christ, and as the fruit of his word of grace. thus it came about that this tendency which luther found represented in agricola, stood out before him in all its compass and with its extremest and most alarming consequences, and called forth the boldest exercise of his zeal. it grieved him sorely, nevertheless, to have to enter into this dispute with his old friend. 'god knows,' he said, 'what trials this business has prepared for me; i shall have died of sheer anxiety before i have brought my theses against him (agricola) to the light.' at the instance, however, of the elector, who valued agricola, another reconciliation was brought about. agricola humbled himself; he even authorised his great opponent to draw up a retractation in his name, and luther did this in a manner very damaging to agricola, in a letter to his former colleague and opponent at eisleben, caspar güttel. agricola thereupon received a place in the newly-formed consistory. but even now he could not refrain from fresh utterances which betrayed his old opinions. luther's confidence in him was thus destroyed for ever: he spoke with indignation, pain, and scorn of 'grikel (agricola), the false man.' the latter at length complained to the elector against luther for having unjustly aspersed him. the elector testified to him his displeasure; luther gave a sharp answer to the charge, and his prince made further inquiries into the matter of complaint. agricola finally snatched at a means of escape offered by his summons to berlin, whither he had been called as a preacher of distinction by the elector joachim ii., who was a convert to the reformation. in august he left wittenberg. he sent thither from berlin another and fully satisfactory retractation in order to retain his official appointment. but luther's friendship with him was broken for ever. in another quarter also melancthon had been charged with deviating in certain statements from the path of right doctrine. we know already how his anxiety about the dangers caused by the separation from the great catholic church seemed to tempt him to indulge in questionable concessions, and how it was luther himself, with a disposition so different to melancthon's, who nevertheless held firmly to his trust in his friend and fellow-labourer, particularly during the diet of augsburg. and, indeed, subsequent events brought this tendency to concession more fully into notice. certain peculiarities now asserted themselves in melancthon's independent opinions, with regard both to theology and practical life, which distinguished his mode of teaching from that of luther. he who, again and again, in the augsburg confession and the apology, as also in the system of evangelical theology which in his 'loci communes' he was the first to elaborate, had expounded with full and active conviction the fundamental evangelical truth of a justifying and saving faith, was anxious also--more so, even, than many strict confessors of that doctrine--to have the whole field of moral improvement and the fruits of morality which were necessary to preserve that faith, estimated at their proper value. and further, with respect to god's will and the operation of his grace, whereby alone the sinner could obtain inward conversion and faith, he wished to make this depend entirely on man's own will and choice, so that the blame might not appear to lie with god if the call to salvation remained fruitless, and a temptation thereby be offered to many to indulge in carelessness or despondency. in addition to this, he differed unmistakably from luther in his doctrine of the sacrament. for, though it was he who at augsburg in had flatly rejected the zwinglians, still his historical researches impressed him with the belief, that, in reality, as indeed the zwinglians maintained, not augustine himself, among the ancients, had taught the real bodily presence after the manner of luther, or even of roman catholicism; and his own theological opinion induced him at least to satisfy himself with more or less obscure propositions about the communion of the saviour who died for us with the guests at his table, without any fixed or clear declarations about the substantiality of the body. this appears, for instance, in his 'loci communes,' although in the formula of the wittenberg concord of he went farther, together with luther. on the first point above-mentioned, a priest named cordatus, a strict adherent of luther, had raised a protest against him in . but the opponent whom melancthon chiefly feared in this respect was the theologian amsdorf, who was not only an old familiar friend of luther, but the especial guardian, both then and still more after luther's death, of lutheran orthodoxy. but luther himself was anxious to avoid, even in this matter, any rupture or discord with melancthon. he took great pains to reconcile the difference, and knew also how to keep silence, though without deviating from his own strict standpoint, or being able to overlook the peculiarity of his friend's teaching, conspicuously apparent as it was in the new edition of his book. we are reminded by this, moreover, how luther, during his illness at schmalkald in , made no secret of his fear of a division breaking out at wittenberg after his death. chapter v. luther and the progress and internal troubles of protestantism. -- . in the great affairs of the church, amid the threats of his enemies and in all his dealings with them, luther continued from day to day to trust quietly in god, as the guider of events, who suffers none to forestall his designs, and puts to shame and rebuke the inventions of man. his hope of external peace had hitherto been fulfilled beyond all expectation. and it had been permitted him to see the reformation gain strength and make further progress in the german empire. indeed, it seemed possible that a union might be effected with those catholics who had been impressed with the evangelical doctrine of salvation. these were results accomplished by the inward power of god's word, as hitherto preached to the people, under a divine and marvellously favourable dispensation of outer relations and events--fruits as unexpected as they were gratifying to luther. great plans or projects of his own, however, were still far from his thoughts; nor even did the details of this historical development demand such activity on his part as he had shown in the earlier years of the movement. and yet there was no lack of discord, difficulty, and trouble within the pale of the new church and amongst its members; prospects of further, and possibly much more serious dangers to be encountered; thoughts of sadness and disquietude to vex the soul of the reformer, now aged, suffering, and weary. the goal of his hopes had ever been, and still remained, not indeed a victory to be gradually achieved for his cause, perhaps even in his own lifetime, by the course of ecclesiastical and political changes and events, but the end which the lord himself, according to his promises, would make of the whole wicked world, and the hereafter whither he was ever waiting to be summoned. since the schmalkaldic allies had rejected the emperor with his invitation to a council, the romish zealots might well hope that charles at length would prepare to use force against them. he was not yet able to bring his quarrel with king francis to a final termination; but, nevertheless, he concluded a truce with him in for ten years, while at the same time his vice-chancellor held contrived to effect a union of roman catholic princes in germany in opposition to the schmalkaldic league. this union was joined, in addition to austria, bavaria, and george of saxony, by duke henry of brunswick, the bitter enemy of the landgrave philip. already in the spring of that year people at wittenberg talked of operations on a large scale ostensibly directed against the turks, but in reality against the protestants. or at least it was feared that the imperial army, in the event of its defeating the turks, might, as luther expressed it, turn their spears against the evangelical party. in this respect luther had no fears; he did not believe in a victory over the turks, and, even in that case, his opinion was that the imperial troops would no more submit to be made the instruments of such a policy than they had done some years before, after their victory at vienna. most earnestly he exhorted the elector, for his part at least, to do his duty again in the war against the turks, for the sake of his fatherland and the poor oppressed people. on the other hand, the right of the protestant states to resist the emperor, if it came to a war of religion, was one which he now asserted without scruple or hesitation. the emperor, he said, in such a war would not be emperor at all, but merely a soldier of the pope. he appealed to the fact that once among the people of israel pious and godly men had risen up against their sovereign; and the german princes had additional rights over their emperor, by virtue of their constitution. finally, he reasoned from the law of nature itself, that a father was bound to protect his wife and children from open murder; and he likened the emperor, who usurped a power notoriously illegal, to a murderer. for the rest, he declared, in a publication exhorting the evangelical clergy to pray for peace, that as to whether the papists chose to carry out their designs or not he was perfectly indifferent, in case god did not will to work a miracle. his only fear was lest a war might arise, if they did so, which would never end, and would be the total ruin of germany. but the emperor was less zealous and more cautious than his vice-chancellor. he sent another representative to germany, with instructions to prevent an outbreak of hostilities. this envoy, in the course of some negotiations conducted at frankfort in april , agreed to an understanding by which the ecclesiastical law-suits hitherto instituted in the imperial chamber against the protestants were suspended, and a number of chosen theologians of piety and laymen were to 'arrange a praiseworthy union of christians' at an assembly of the german estates. on april , in the midst of these transactions, duke george of saxony died after a short illness. his country passed to his brother henry, who in his own smaller territory of freiburg had for some years, much to the grief of george, established the evangelical form of worship, and given shelter to the heretics banished by his brother. the latter had left no male issue to succeed him. he had lost two sons in boyhood; and his son john, who held the same opinions as himself, had died two years ago, when quite a young man, without leaving any children. his last remaining son frederick was of weak intellect, but had nevertheless been married after his brother's death, and died a few weeks later. he was soon followed by his unhappy father and sovereign. luther said of him that he had gone to everlasting fire, though he would have wished him life and conversion. to us his end appears the more tragic because we cannot but acknowledge the honest zeal with which, from his own point of view, he endeavoured to serve god, and would willingly even have effected a reform in the church; whilst, in spite of all his severity against heretics, he never suffered himself to be hurried into deeds of coarse violence and cruelty. there are extant prayers and religious discourses, composed and written down by himself. he read the bible, and expressed a wish, when luther's translation appeared, that 'the monk would put the whole bible into german, and then go about his business.' thus the old and constantly revived quarrel between luther and the duke came at length to an end. the reformation was immediately introduced throughout the duchy by the appointment of evangelical clergy, by changes in public worship, and by a visitation of churches after the example of the one in electoral saxony. when henry was solemnly acknowledged sovereign at leipzig, he invited luther and jonas to be present. on the afternoon of whitsunday, may , , luther preached a sermon in the court chapel of that castle of pleissenburg, where he had once disputed before george with eck, and on the following afternoon he preached in one of the churches of the town, not venturing to do so in the morning on account of his weak state of health. he now proclaimed aloud, in his sermon on the gospel for whitsunday, that the church of christ was not there, where men were madly crying 'church! church!' without the word of god, nor was it with the pope, the cardinals, and the bishops; but there, and there only, where christ was loved and his word was kept, and where accordingly he dwelt in the souls of men. he refrained from any special reference to the state of things hitherto existing at leipzig and in the duchy, or to the change brought about by god. but we call to mind the words he had spoken in , 'who knows what god will do before ten years are over?' very soon, indeed, the magnates of the saxon court and the nobility, though accepting the reformed faith of their new sovereign, gave occasion to luther for bitter complaints of their rapacity, their indifference to religion, and their improper and tyrannical usurpations on the territory of the church. in addition to the saxon duchy, the electorate of brandenburg was also about to go over to protestantism. the elector joachim i. adhered so strictly to the ancient church, that his wife elizabeth, who was evangelically inclined, had fled to saxony, where she became an intimate friend of luther's household. but on his death in , his younger son john, together with his territory, the 'neumark,' joined at once the schmalkaldic allies. and now, after longer consideration, his elder brother also, joachim ii.--a man of quieter disposition and more attached to ancient ways--took the decisive step, after an agreement with his estates and the territorial bishop, jagow. on november , , he received from the latter publicly the sacrament in both kinds. under these circumstances the emperor resolved to give effect to the essential part of the frankfort agreement. he summoned a meeting at spire 'for the purpose of so arranging matters that the wearisome dissension in religion might be reconciled in a christian manner.' in consequence of a pestilence which appeared at spire, the assembly was removed to hagenau. here it was actually held in june . meanwhile, the most vigorous champion of protestantism, the landgrave philip, took a step which was calculated to damage the position of the evangelical church and to embarrass its adherents more than anything which their enemies could possibly attempt. philip, in his youth ( ) had taken to wife a daughter of duke george of saxony, but soon repented of his ill-considered resolve, on the ground that she was of an unamiable disposition and was afflicted with bodily infirmities, and accordingly proceeded to look elsewhere for a mistress, after the fashion only too common at that time with emperors and princes, but scarcely commented upon in their case. the earnest remonstrances made to him on religious grounds against this step had the effect of causing him certain prickings of conscience; he had not ventured on that account, as he now complained, to present himself at the lord's table, with one single exception, since the peasants' war. but his conscience was not strong enough to make him give up his evil ways. at last the bible, which he read industriously, seemed to him to provide a means of outlet from his difficulty. he sheltered himself, as the anabaptist fanatics had done before him, behind the old testament precedent of abraham and other godly men, to whom it had been permitted to have more than one wife, and pleaded, moreover, that the new testament contained no prohibition of polygamy. with all the energy and stubbornness of his nature, he fastened on these notions and clung to them, when, at the house of his sister, the duchess elizabeth, at rochlitz, he chanced to meet and fall in love with a lady named margaret von der saal. she refused to be his except by marriage. her mother even demanded of him that luther, butzer, and melancthon, or at least two of them, together with an envoy of the elector and the duke of saxony, should be present as witnesses at the marriage. philip himself found the consent of these divines and of his most distinguished ally, john frederick, indispensable. he succeeded first of all in gaining over the versatile butzer, and sent him in december , on this errand, to wittenberg. he appealed to the strait that he was in, no longer able with a good conscience to go to war or to punish crime, and also to the testimony of scripture, adding, very truly, that the emperor and the world were quite willing to permit both him and anyone else to live in open immorality. thus, he said, they were forbidding what god allowed, and winking at what he prohibited. in other respects, indeed, a double marriage was not a thing unheard of even by the christendom of those days. it was said, for instance, of the christian emperor of rome, valentinian ii., to whose case philip himself appealed, that he had been permitted to contract a marriage of that kind. to the pope was ascribed the power to grant the necessary dispensation. on december butzer brought back to the landgrave from wittenberg an opinion of luther and melancthon. they told him in decided terms that it was in accordance with creation itself, and recognised as such by jesus, 'that a man was not to have more than one wife;' and they, the preachers of god's word, were commanded to regulate marriage and all human things 'in accordance with their original and divine institution, and to adhere thereto as closely as possible, while at the same time avoiding to their utmost all cause of pain or annoyance.' they urgently exhorted him not to regard incontinence, as did the world, in the light of a trifling offence, and represented to him plainly that if he refused to resist his evil inclinations, he would not mend matters by taking a second wife. but with all this exhortation and warning, they confessed themselves bound to admit that 'what was allowed in respect of marriage by the law of moses was not actually forbidden in the gospel;' thereby maintaining, in point of fact, that an original ordinance in the church must be adhered to as the rule, but nevertheless admitting the possibility of a dispensation under very strong and exceptional circumstances. they did not say that such a dispensation was applicable to the case of philip; they only wished him earnestly to reconsider the matter with his own conscience. in the event, however, of his keeping to his resolve, they would not refuse him the benefit of a dispensation, and only required that the matter should be kept private, on account of the scandal and possible abuse it would occasion if generally known. luther himself abandoned afterwards the conclusions he drew from the old testament in this respect, and, as a consequence, rejected the admissibility of a double marriage for christians. friends of the evangelical and lutheran belief can only lament the decision he pronounced in this matter. with that belief itself it has nothing whatever to do. instead of drawing his conclusions from the moral aspect of marriage, as amply attested by the spirit of the new testament, though not indeed exactly expressed, luther on this occasion clung to the letter, and failed, of course, to find any written declaration on the point. at the same time he mistook, in common with all the theologians of his time, the difference, in point of matured morality and knowledge, between the new covenant and the standpoint of the old, which was that also of his best adherents. the simple christian common sense of the elector john frederick, and his practical view of the position, preserved him this time from the error into which the theologians had fallen. he lamented that they should have given an answer, and would have nothing to do with the business. philip, however, rejoiced at the decision, and obtained, moreover, his wife's consent to take a second one. in the following march the protestants held another conference at schmalkald, with a view of coming to an agreement as to their conduct in the attempts at unity in the church. the elector summoned melancthon thither, but excused luther, at his own request. philip then invited the former, under some pretext or other, to the neighbouring castle of rothenburg on the fulda. arrived there, he was obliged to be a witness with butzer, on march , , to the marriage of the landgrave with margaret. philip thanked luther some weeks after for the 'remedy' allowed him, without which he should have become 'quite desperate.' he had kept the name of his second wife a secret from the wittenbergers; he now told luther that she was a virtuous maiden, a relative of luther's own wife, and that he rejoiced to have honourably become his kinsman. very soon, however, the news of this unheard of event got wind. the evangelicals were not less scandalised than their enemies, who in other respects were glad to see the mischief. the first to demand an explanation was the ducal court of saxony, the duke being so nearly related to philip's first wife, and on the eve of a quarrel with philip about a claim of inheritance. the landgrave's whole position was in jeopardy; for bigamy, by the law of the empire, was a serious offence. luther heard now with indignation that the 'necessity' to which philip had thought himself justified in yielding had been exaggerated. the latter, on the other hand, finding concealment no longer possible, wished to announce his marriage publicly, and defend it. he went so far as to imagine that even if the allies should renounce him he might still procure the favour and consideration of the emperor. unpleasant and very painful discussions arose between him, john frederick, and duke henry of saxony. meanwhile, the day was now approaching for the conference at hagenau. melancthon was sent there too by the elector. but on reaching weimar on june , where the prince was then staying, he suddenly fell ill, and it seemed as if his end was close at hand. he was oppressed with trouble and anxiety about the wrongdoing of the landgrave. the elector himself wrote reproachfully to philip, saying that 'philip melancthon was disturbed with miserable thoughts about him,' and he now lay between life and death. luther was sent for by the elector from wittenberg. he found the sick man lying in a state of unconsciousness and seemingly quite dead to the world. shocked at the sight, he exclaimed, 'god help us! how has satan marred this vessel of thy grace!' then the faithful, manly friend fell to praying god for his precious companion, casting, as he said, all his heart's request before him, and reminding him of all the promises contained in his own word. he exhorted and bade melancthon to be of good courage, for that god willed not the death of a sinner, and he would yet live to serve him. he assured him he would rather now depart himself. on melancthon's gradually showing more signs of life, he had some food prepared for him, and on his refusing it said, 'you really must eat, or i will excommunicate you.' by degrees the patient revived in body and soul. luther was able to inform another friend, 'we found him dead, and by an evident miracle he lives.' luther, after this, was taken to eisenach by his prince, to advise him on the news which he expected to receive there from hagenau. at eisenach he and the chancellor brück had an earnest consultation with envoys from hesse. against these, both luther and brück insisted that the proceedings which had taken place between philip and the theologians in respect to his marriage should be kept as secret as a confession, and that philip must be content to have his second marriage regarded, in the eyes of the world and according to the law, as concubinage. he must make up his mind, therefore, to parry, as best he could, the questions which were being noised abroad about him, with vague statements or equivocations. he would then incur no further personal danger. but any attempt to brazen it out would inevitably land him in confusion and embarrassment, and only increase and continue the damage done to the evangelical cause by this affair. the diet at hagenau made no further demand on luther's activity. it was there resolved to take in hand again, at another meeting to be held at worms late in the autumn, and after further preparation, the religious and ecclesiastical questions at issue. peaceably-disposed and competent men were to be appointed on both sides for this purpose. thus luther was now at liberty to leave eisenach towards the end of july, and return home, dissatisfied, as he wrote to his wife, with the diet at hagenau, where labour and expense had been wasted, but happy in the thought that melancthon had been restored from death to life. at worms the proceedings, in which melancthon and eck took a prominent part, were further adjourned to a diet which the emperor purposed to hold in person at ratisbon early in . here, on april , a debate was opened on religion. luther entertained very slender expectations from all these conferences, considering the long-ascertained opinions of his opponents. he pointed to the innocent blood which had long stained the hands of the emperor charles and king ferdinand. still, during the diet at worms, the thought arose in his mind that, if only the emperor were rightly disposed, a german council might actually result from that assembly. he saw his enemies busy with their secret schemes of mischief, and feared lest many of his comrades in the faith, such as the landgrave philip, might treat too lightly the matter, which was no mere comedy among men, but a tragedy in which god and satan were the actors. he rejoiced again, however, that the falsehood and cunning of his enemies must be brought to nought by their own folly, and that god himself would consummate the great catastrophe of the drama. and in regard to the fear we have just mentioned, he declared that he, at any rate, would not suffer himself to be dragged into anything against his own conviction. 'rather,' said he, 'would i take the matter again on my own shoulders, and stand alone, as at the beginning. we know that it is the cause of god, and he will carry it through to the end; whoever will not go with it, must remain behind.' between the diets of worms and ratisbon he entered in , with all his old severity, and with a violence even beyond his wont, into a bitter correspondence which had just then begun between duke henry of brunswick--wolfenbüttel, a zealous catholic, and morally of ill repute with friend and foe, on the one side, and john frederick and the landgrave philip, the heads of the schmalkaldic league, on the other. he published against duke henry a pamphlet 'against hans worst.' the duke had taunted him with having allowed himself to call his own sovereign hans wurst. luther assured him, in reply, that he had never given this name to a single man, whether friend or foe; but now applied it to the duke, because he found it meant a stupid blockhead who wished to be thought clever and all the time spoke and acted like a simpleton. but he was not content with calling him a blockhead; he represented him as a profligate man, who, while libelling the princes and pretending to be the champion of god's ordinances, himself practised open adultery, committed acts of violence and insolent tyranny, and incited men to incendiarism in his opponents' territories. he would let the duke scream himself hoarse or dead with his calumnies against john frederick and the evangelicals, and simply answer him by saying, 'devil, thou liest! hans worst, how thou liest! o, henry wolfenbüttel, what a shameless liar thou art! thou spittest forth much, and namest nothing; thou libellest, and provest nothing.' at the same time this pamphlet of luther was a literary vindication of the reformation and protestantism; here, said he, and not in the popedom, was the true, ancient, and original christian church. luther himself, on reading over his pamphlet after it was printed, thought its tone against henry was too mild; a headache, he said, must have suppressed his indignation. just at this time he had to encounter a fresh and violent attack of illness. he described it, in a letter to melancthon, who was then at ratisbon, as a 'cold in the head;' it was accompanied not only with alarming giddiness, from which he was now a frequent sufferer, but also with deafness and intolerable pains, forcing tears from his eyes, something unusual with him, and making him call on god to put an end to his pain or to his life. a copious discharge of matter from his ear, which occurred in passion week, gave him relief; but for a long while he continued very weak and suffering. to his prince, who sent his private physician to attend him, he wrote on april , thanking him, and adding, 'i should have been well content if the dear lord jesus had taken me in his mercy from hence, as i am now of little more use on earth.' he attributed his recovery to the intercessions which bugenhagen had made for him in the church. whilst he was still feeling his head thus full of pain and unfit for work, he was called upon to give his opinion on the preparations for the religious conference at ratisbon, and afterwards upon its results. bright prospects seemed now to be opening for the victory of the gospel. men of understanding and really desirous of peace had for once been commissioned, by the catholics as well as by the protestants, to conduct the debate. the chief actors were no longer an eck, though he, too, was one of the collocutors, but the pious, gentle, and refined theologian julius von pflug, and the electoral counsellor of cologne, gropper, who vied with him in an earnest desire for reform and unity. contarini also was there, as the papal legate--a man influenced by purely religious motives, and a convert to the deeper evangelical doctrine of salvation. melancthon and butzer were also there. the questions of most importance from the evangelical point of view were first dealt with--namely, those which related, not to the external system and authority of the church, but to man's need of, and the way to obtain, salvation, to sin, grace, and justification. and it was now unanimously confessed that the faithful soul is sustained solely by the righteousness given by christ; and for his sake alone, and not for any worthiness or works of its own, is justified and accepted by god. never before, and never since, have protestant and catholic theologians approached each other so nearly, nay, been so unanimous, on these fundamental doctrines, as on that memorable day. and the catholics, in this, distinctly left the ground of mediæval scholasticism, and went over to that of the evangelicals. how distinctly this was done will be apparent to any one who compares the propositions accepted at the conference of ratisbon with the catholic reply to the augsburg confession of . nevertheless, we do not find that luther felt particularly elated by the news from ratisbon. the formula which embodied their agreement seemed to him a 'roundabout and patched affair.' in connection with faith, as the only means of justification, too much, he thought, was said of the works which must spring from it; in connection with the justification given to the faithful through christ, too much was said of the righteousness which each christian must strive to attain. he, too, had always taught and demanded both works and righteousness. but the present arrangement of clauses seemed to him calculated to lessen and obscure again the primary importance of christ and of faith, as the sole means of salvation. and we see what objection was uppermost in his mind, in his allusion to eck, who also was obliged to subscribe the formula. eck, said luther, would never confess to having once taught differently to now, and would know well enough how to adopt the new tenets to his old way of thinking. they were putting a patch of new cloth upon an old garment, and the rent would be made worse. (matt. ix. .) luther was spared, however, a decision as to the acceptance or non-acceptance of an agreement. for among the catholic estates of the empire he found, so far as he had followed the debate of the diet, too strong an opposition to hope for real union. moreover, the collocutors themselves were unable to agree when they came to further questions, as, for example, the mass and transubstantiation; they still shipwrecked, therefore, on those points which were of the most vital importance for the external glorification of the priesthood and the church, and the surrender of which would have meant the sacrifice of a dogma already ratified by a conciliar decree. on june an embassy from ratisbon appeared before luther in the name of those protestant states which were most zealous for unity. prince john of anhalt was at their head. luther was requested to declare his concurrence with what had been done, and assist them in giving permanent effect to the articles agreed to at the conference, and arranging some peaceful and tolerant compromise with regard to those points on which agreement had been impossible. luther was quite prepared to acquiesce in such toleration, provided only the emperor would permit the preaching of the articles referring to the doctrine of salvation, leaving it open to the protestants to continue their warfare of the word on the points still remaining in dispute. the emperor, however, would only sanction those articles on the understanding that a council should finally decide upon them, and that, in the meantime, all controversial writings on matters of religion should cease. by the catholic estates at the diet they were strenuously opposed. luther's own opinion remained substantially the same as before--namely, that any trust or hopes were vain, unless their enemies gave god the honour due to him, and openly confessed that they had changed their teaching. the emperor must see and acknowledge that within the last twenty years his edict had been the murder of many pious people. the conference accordingly remained fruitless. the diet, however, did not close without achieving an important result for the protestants; for the emperor granted them, at their request, the religious peace of nüremberg. the main reason that induced charles so far to toleration and leniency was the trouble with the turks. with regard to these, luther now addressed himself once more to his countrymen with words of earnestness and weight. he published an 'exhortation to prayer against the turks,' teaching and warning his readers to regard them as a scourge of god, and make war against them as god commanded. from this time also dates his hymn lord, shield us with thy word, our hope, and smite the moslem and the pope. when a tax was levied for the war with the turks, luther himself begged the elector not to exempt him with his scanty goods. he would gladly, he said, if not too old and too infirm, 'be one of the army himself.' in he brought out for his countrymen a refutation of the koran, written in earlier days, that they might learn what a shameful faith was mahomed's, and not suffer themselves to be perverted, in case by god's decree they should see the turks victorious, or even fall into their hands. chapter vi. progress and inteenal troubles of protestantism. - . the reformation, against which the emperor had so repeatedly to promise his interference, and with which he was compelled to seek for a peaceful understanding, continued meanwhile to gain ground in various parts of germany. [illustration: fig. .--jonas. (from a portrait by cranach, in his album at berlin, .)] luther hailed with especial joy its victory in the town of halle, which had formerly been a favourite seat of the cardinal albert and the chief scene of his wanton extravagances, and where now one of luther's most intimate and most learned friends from wittenberg, justus jonas, was installed as reformer and evangelical pastor. here the final impetus was given to the movement, among the mass of the population, of whom the large majority had long espoused the cause of luther, by those money difficulties which played such a serious and grievous part in the life of albert. when, in the spring of , the town was called on to pay taxes to the amount of , gulden, to defray the cardinal's debts, the citizens made the payment conditional on their council appointing an evangelical preacher. jonas was accordingly invited to the town, and received at once, on his arrival, a regular appointment through the magistracy and a committee of the congregation. in passion week, when luther was recovering from his illness and albert had to attend the diet at ratisbon, jonas for the first time took his place in the principal church in the town, then recently rebuilt, in the pulpit which the archbishop had had erected with elaborate carvings in stone. soon after the two other churches in the town received evangelical preachers. the general regulation of church matters was entrusted to jonas, and remained under his control. luther, however, supported his friend with his advice, and continued on terms of trusted intimacy with him till his death. he did not conceal his joy that the 'wicked old rogue,' albert, should have had to live to see this, and praised god for upholding his judgment upon earth. the collection of countless and wonderful relics with which the cardinal, twenty years before, had sought to carry on the traffic in indulgences, so hateful to luther, he now wished to exhibit in like manner at mayence, his town of residence. thereupon luther, in , published anonymously, but with the evident intention of being recognised as its author, a 'new paper from the rhine,' which announced to german christendom a series of new, unheard-of relics, collected by his highness the elector, such as a piece of the left horn of moses, three tongues of flame from his burning bush, &c., and lastly a whole drachm of his own true heart and half an ounce of his own truthful tongue, which his highness had added as a legacy by his last will and testament. the pope, said luther, had promised to anyone who should give a gulden in honour of the relics, a remission for ten years of whatever sins he pleased. contempt of this kind was all that luther found the exhibition deserved. albert remained silent. about the same time the elector john frederick undertook a novel, important, though a dangerous, and to luther an objectionable step, in connection with a bishopric then vacant. the bishop of naumburg had died. the chapter of the cathedral, with whom lay the election of his successor, were accustomed to guide their choice by the wish of the elector, as their territorial sovereign. they now elected, without waiting to hear from john frederick, who had seceded from catholicism, the distinguished julius von pflug. the elector, on the contrary, was anxious, as his privilege was hurt by this neglect, to nominate a bishop of his own choice, and, moreover, a member of the augsburg confession. his chancellor, brück, protested earnestly against this step, and luther could not refrain from endorsing his remonstrance. if the common herd of papists, he said, had been content to look on and see what had been done to priests and monks, they and the emperor would not care to see the same things done with the episcopate. the elector thought this pusillanimous; he wished to be bolder and more spirited than luther. it was a pity only that his pious zeal lacked the more circumspect judgment of his advisers, and that the interests of his own authority were also concerned. he declined even to accept the advice of the wittenberg theologians, who suggested that, at all events, the bishopric should be given to the eminent prince of the empire, george of anhalt, but chose nicholas von amsdorf--a man of better promise, not, indeed, solely from his theological principles, but as being likely to be more dependent on his territorial sovereign, though perhaps, as an unmarried man and a member of the nobility, less repugnant than any other protestant theologian to the catholics. on january , , the elector brought him in solemn state to naumburg before the chapter there assembled. luther was glad, nevertheless, to see an evangelical bishop. he took care to introduce him in evangelical manner. according to the catholic doctrine, as is well known, the episcopate is transmitted from the apostles by the act of consecration, with the laying on of hands and anointing, which can only be done by one bishop to another, and only a bishop can then consecrate priests or the clergy. the reformers would easily have been able to continue this so-called apostolical succession through the prussian bishops who went over to them. but, as they never acknowledged the necessity of this with regard to the inferior clergy, neither did they with regard to the new bishop. luther himself consecrated amsdorf on january , together with two evangelical superintendents of the neighbourhood, and the principal pastor and superintendent of the evangelical congregation at naumburg, with prayer and the laying on of hands, in the presence of the various orders and a multitude of people from the town and district assembled in the cathedral. the congregation were first informed that an honest, upright bishop had now been nominated for them by their sovereign and his estates in concert with the clergy, and they were called upon to express their own approval by an amen, which was thereupon given loudly in response. in this manner at least it was sought to comply with a rule especially enjoined by cyprian: namely, that a bishop should be elected in an assembly of neighbouring bishops and with the consent of his own congregation. luther gave an account of the ceremony in a tract, entitled 'example of the way to consecrate a true christian bishop.' [illustration: fig. e.-amsdorf. (from an old woodcut.)] brück's apprehensions meantime were only too well founded. the complaints raised against this consecration weighed heavily with even the more moderate opponents of the reformation, and especially with the emperor. it was at the same time very evident that, as we have elsewhere observed, the elector, good churchman as he was by disposition, frequently displayed too little energy in regard to the general relations and interests of his church. thus the arrangements required for the bishopric remained neglected, and the new bishop was furnished with a most inadequate maintenance. luther complained that the electoral court undertook great things, and then left them sticking in the mire. moreover, among many of the temporal lords, even on the protestant side, there were signs of spiteful jealousy and suspicion against the honours and advantages enjoyed by their theologians. luther himself proceeded therefore with the utmost possible caution. he even declined once a present of venison from his friend amsdorf, in order not to give occasion for calumny by the 'centaurs at court;' though, as he said, they themselves had devoured everything, without any prickings of conscience. 'let them,' he wrote to amsdorf, 'guzzle in god's name or in any other.' scarcely had the elector's instalment of the bishop ( ) awakened these bitter feelings of resentment, when a war threatened to break out between the elector and his cousin and fellow-protestant, duke maurice of saxony, the successor of his late father henry--a war which would have imperilled more than anything else the position of the protestants in the empire, and which stirred and disquieted luther to his inmost soul. between the ducal, or albertine, and the electoral, or ernestine lines of the princely house of saxony, various rights were in dispute, and among them, in particular, those of supreme jurisdiction over the little town of wurzen, belonging to the bishopric of meissen. when now the bishop of meissen refused to let the subsidy, levied at wurzen for the war against the turks, be forwarded to the elector, the latter, in march , quickly sent thither his troops. maurice at once called out his own troops against him. both continued to arm, and prepared to fight. luther thereupon, in a letter of april , intended for publication, appealed to them and their estates in terms of heartfelt christian fervour and perfect frankness. he reminded them of the scriptural admonition to keep peace; of the close relationship of the two princes as the sons of two sisters; of their noble birth; of their subjects, the burghers and peasants, who were so closely intermingled by marriage that the war would be no war, but a mere family brawl; furthermore, of the petty ground of their fierce contention, just as if two drunken rustics were fighting in a tavern about a glass of beer, or two idiots about a bit of bread; of the shame and scandal for the gospel; and of the triumph of their enemies and the devil, who would rejoice to see this little spark kindle into a conflagration. if either of the two, instead of using force, would declare himself content with what was just and right, whether it were his own elector or the duke, luther for his part would assist him with his prayers, and he might then trust himself with confidence against aggression, and leave spear and musket to the children of discontent. he told the others that they had incurred the ban and the vengeance of god; nay, he advised all who had to fight under such an unpeaceful prince to run from the field as fast as they could. the landgrave philip, who had hitherto, on account of his second marriage, continued somewhat on strained terms with john frederick, brought about at this critical moment a peaceful understanding between him and maurice. the young duke, however, burned with an ambition which longed to satisfy itself, even at the expense of his cousin and other protestant princes, and his power, moreover, was far superior to the elector's. luther augured evil for the future. the reformation was now accepted in the territory also of duke henry of brunswick. the landgrave philip and john frederick had taken the field together against him, on account of his having attacked the evangelical town of goslar and sought defiantly to execute against it a sentence, in connection with ecclesiastical matters, which had threatened it from the imperial chamber, but was suspended by the emperor. this war against 'henry the incendiary' luther considered just and necessary, the question being one of protecting the oppressed. wolfenbüttel, whose fortress the duke boasted to be impregnable, speedily succumbed on august , , to the fate of war and the boldness of philip. luther saw with triumph how the fortress which, it was reputed, could stand a six years' siege, had fallen in three days by the help of god. he hoped only that the conquerors would be humble and give the glory of the exploit to god. they then occupied the land, the prince of which fled, and proceeded to establish the evangelical church, in accordance with the general wish of the population. maurice of saxony, who still strenuously adhered to the evangelical confession and to his rights as protector of the church, not only continued the reformation commenced in the duchy by his father, but succeeded in extending it peacefully to the bishopric of merseburg. the chapter there decided, in , on his nomination, to elect to the vacant see his young brother augustus, who, not being himself an ecclesiastic, delegated at once his episcopal functions to george of anhalt, luther's pious-minded friend. luther in the summer of the following year consecrated him, in the same manner as amsdorf, together with several superintendents, and with bugenhagen, cruciger, and jonas. events far greater and more important were occurring in the archbishopric of cologne. here an archbishop at once and elector, the aged, worthy hermann of wied, had resolved, from his own free conviction, to undertake a reformation on the basis of the gospel. in he invited melancthon for this purpose from wittenberg. melancthon's fellow-labourer was butzer, who had the reputation of always allowing himself to be carried too far by his zeal for general unity in the church, and at the same time, in regard to the doctrine of the sacrament, even as accepted by the wittenberg concord, of preferring a more vague conception of his own. luther, however, promoted the undertaking with thanks to god, himself furthered melancthon's going, assured him of his entire confidence, and learned from him with joy of the archbishop's uprightness, penetration, and constancy. in like manner, the bishop of münster also began to attempt a reformation, in conformity with the wishes of his estates. the emperor at length, who since had been again at war with france, and who needed therefore all the assistance that his german estates could give him, displayed at a new diet at spires, in , more gracious consideration to the protestants than he had ever done before. in the imperial recess he promised not only to endeavour to bring about a general council, to be assembled in germany, but undertook, since the meeting of such a council was still uncertain, to convoke another diet, which should itself deal with the religion in dispute. in the meantime, he and the various estates of the empire would consider and prepare a scheme for christian unity and a general christian reformation. the archbishop albert, now wholly embittered against the reformation, had issued a warning, after the diet of , against any agreement to hold a council on german soil, as the protestant poison would here have too powerful an influence; in a national german council he foresaw the threatening danger of a schism. the resolutions passed at spires brought down severe reproaches from the pope against the emperor. what particularly scandalised his christian holiness was that laymen--aye, laymen, who supported the condemned heretics--were to sit as judges in matters concerning the church and the priesthood. protestantism, both in its extent and power, had now reached a point of progress in the german empire which seemed to offer a possibility of its becoming the religion of the great majority of the nation, and even of this majority being united. charles v., nevertheless, kept his eyes steadily fixed on his original goal--nay, he probably felt himself nearer to it than ever. by his concessions he obtained an army, which enabled him in the september of that year to conclude a durable peace with king francis, stipulating, as before, but secretly, for mutual co-operation for the restoration of catholic unity in the church. the next thing to be done was to persuade the pope at length to convene a council, which should serve this object in the sense intended by the emperor, and then to enforce by its authority the final subjection of the protestants. this possibility of a final triumph of protestantism might have been counted on with hope, if only that breath of the spirit which had once been stirred by the reformer and had already responded to his efforts had remained in full force and vigour in the hearts of the german people; and if the new spirit, thus awakened, had really penetrated the masses, or, at least, the influential classes and high personages who espoused the new faith, and had purified and strengthened them to fight, to work, and to suffer. but luther complained from the very first, and more and more as time went on, how sadly this spirit was wanting to assist him in proclaiming the gospel and combating the anti-christian system of rome. thus he again complained, when hearing of what had happened at cologne, at münster, and at brunswick, that 'much evil and little good happens to us;' he adapted to his own church community the proverb, 'the nearer rome, the worse, the christian,' as well as the words of the prophets, lamenting the iniquity of jerusalem, the holy city. in his zeal he reproached the evangelical congregations even more severely than his catholic and popish opponents would ever have ventured to reproach them, inasmuch as their own moral position, to say the least, was not a whit better. but against the former, his own brethren, luther had to complain of base ingratitude to god for the signal benefits he had vouchsafed them. thus the peasantry, in particular, he taxed again and again with their old selfish and obstinate indifference and stupidity; the burghers with their luxury and service of mammon; and his fellow-countrymen in general with their gluttony and their coarse and carnal appetites. it pained him most to see these sins prevail among his nearest fellow-townsmen and followers, his wittenbergers; and he lashed out with all his force against the students whom, as a class, he saw addicted to unchastity and to 'swinish vices,' as he called them. the authorities, in his opinion, were far too unmindful of their high appointment by god, of which he had taken such pains to assure them. when church discipline came to be really introduced and made more stringent, he foresaw quite well that it would only touch the peasants, and not reach the upper classes. among the great nobles at court, especially at dresden, but also at that of the elector, he found 'violent centaurs and greedy harpies,' who preyed upon the reformation and disgraced it, and in whose midst it was difficult--nay, impossible--even for an honest, right-minded ruler to govern as a true christian. he had already, and especially in these latter years, been in conflict with lawyers, including some of well-recognised conscientiousness, such as his colleague and friend schurf, about many questions in which they declared themselves unable to deviate from theories of the canon or even the roman law, which he considered unchristian and immoral. he declared it, for example, to be an insult to the law of god that they should insist so strongly on the obligation of vows of marriage, made by young people in secret and against their parents' will. so far from anticipating the triumph of the evangelical religion, while such was the condition of germans and german protestants, he predicted with anxiety heavy punishment for his country, and declared that god would assuredly cause the confessors of the gospel to be purged and sifted by calamity. just at that time, when a decisive moment was approaching for the great ecclesiastical contest in germany, luther felt himself constrained to rend asunder once more the bond of peace and mutual toleration which had been established with such trouble between himself and the swiss evangelicals. in doing so, he had seen no reason either to change or conceal his old opinion about zwingli. the swiss, on the other hand, offended by luther's utterances, took, in a manner, their honoured teacher and reformer under their protection; from which luther concluded that they still clung to all his errors. a lurking distrust of luther had never been wholly dispelled among them. luther heard, moreover, of corrupting influences still exercised by the sacramentarians outside switzerland. a letter reached him to that effect from some of his adherents at venice, whose complaints of the mischievous results of the sacramental controversy among their fellow-worshippers ascribed that controversy to the continued influence of zwinglianism. in august he wrote to the zurich printer froschauer, who had presented him with a translation of the bible made by the preacher of that town, saying briefly and frankly that he could have no fellowship with them, and that he had no desire to share the blame of their pernicious doctrine; he was sorry 'that they should have laboured in vain, and should after all be lost.' even in a scheme of reformation which butzer, with melancthon, had prepared for cologne, he now discovered some suspicious articles about the sacrament, to which a criticism of amsdorf had drawn his notice; they passed over, it appeared, luther's declaration, already agreed on, about the substantial presence of christ's body in the sacrament, or merely 'mumbled it,' as was luther's expression. nay, he heard it said that even wittenberg and himself would not adhere to his doctrine on this point. occasion, indeed, was given for this remark by the circumstance that the ancient usage of the elevation of the host, which, though connected with the catholic idea of sacrifice, had nevertheless been hitherto retained, though interpreted in another sense, was now at length abolished at wittenberg. after much anger and discontent, luther broke out, in september , with the tract, 'short confession of the holy sacrament.' he had nothing to do with any new refutation of false teachers--these, he said, had already been frequently convicted by him as open blasphemers--but simply to testify once more against the 'fanatics and enemies of the sacrament, carlstadt, zwingli, oecolampadius, schwenkfeld, and their disciples,' and once and for all to renounce all fellowship with these lost souls. alarming reports were spread about attacks being also meditated by luther against butzer and melancthon. melancthon himself trembled; he seriously feared he should be compelled to retire into exile. but not a word did luther say against butzer, beyond calling him, as he did now, a chatterbox. against melancthon we find nowhere, not even in luther's letters to his intimate friends, a single harsh or menacing expression from his lips. he maintained his confidence in him, even in respect to the later proceedings in the church. when urged to publish a collection of his latin writings, he long refused to do so, as he says in the preface to his edition of , because there were already such excellent works on christian doctrine, such as, in particular, the 'loci communes' of melancthon, which its author had recently revised. it must be regretted that melancthon, at moments like these, which must have caused him pain, did not open his heart with more freedom and courage to the friend whose heart still beat with such warm and unchanging affection for himself. luther never, till the day of his death, bestowed much care or calculation on the immediate consequences of his acts and of the work to which he felt himself called and urged by god, and which certainly brought out in strong relief the individuality of his nature. while committing, as he did, the cause to god alone, he kept steadily in view the ultimate goal to which god was surely guiding it--nay, that goal was immediately before his eyes. his confident belief in the near approach of the last day, when the lord would solve all these earthly doubts and difficulties, and manifest himself in the perfect glory and bliss of his kingdom, remained in him unaltered from the beginning of his struggle to the end of his labours. we recognise in this belief the intensity of his own longings, wrestlings, and strivings for this end, as also the sincerity of his own conviction, little as the days of which we are now speaking, so busy with events of every kind, corresponded with the time ordained by god. luther stretched out his view and aspirations beyond this world, all the time that he was teaching christians again how to honour the world in the moral duties assigned to them, and to enjoy its blessings and benefits with thankfulness to god. 'no man knoweth the day or the hour'--of this he constantly reminded them, and warned them against idle speculations. but his hopes, nevertheless, he still rested on the nearness of the end. these hopes he expressed with peculiar assurance in a small latin tract, written during these later years of his life, in which he treats of biblical chronology, and further of the epochal years in the history of the world. in referring, for example, to the wide-spread theory, originating with the jews, of a great week of six thousand years, to be followed by the final and everlasting day of rest, he sought with much ingenuity of reasoning to prove that of those six thousand years probably only half would be accomplished. since now, according to his chronology, the year , was the , th year of the world, the end was bound to be at hand--nay, was already overdue--when his little book appeared in . yet, whatever were his views on this point, he never, like so many others, allowed himself to be drawn by such hopes and desires into illusions dangerous in practice. this year passed by without any further or greater literary labour on his part. in addition to this continued polemic against the popedom and false teachers, we must not omit to mention some characteristic controversial writings, provoked from him by his indignation at the attacks on christianity by jews, nay, by their seduction of many christians. as early as , a strange rumour of a 'jewish rabble' in moravia--a country rich in sectaries--having induced christians to accept the mosaic law, had called forth from him a public 'letter against the sabbathers.' he launched out with vehemence against them in in some further tracts, inveighing mainly against the dirty insults and savage blasphemies which the brazen-faced jews dared to employ towards christ and christians, and also against the usurers, in whose toils the christians were ensnared. he declared even that their synagogues, the scene of their blasphemies and calumnies, should be burnt, and they themselves compelled to take to honest handicraft, or be hunted from the country. in the grand and beautiful labour of his life, the german translation of the bible, he was busily occupied until his death. after the second chief edition had appeared, in , he endeavoured to improve, at least in some points, those which followed in and . he meditated also revising and further improving the most important of his sermons, which have been left to posterity. after having undertaken this task in with a number of them, he caused three years later the 'summer-postills,' which roth had previously edited and brought out, to be published in a new form by his colleague cruciger. this work was now completed by the addition of his sermons on the epistles. we have already seen how earnestly, even before the great end should come, luther longed for his eternal rest, and for release from the struggles and labours of his earthly life, and the burden of his bodily suffering. he spoke of his death with calmness but with deep earnestness, and, indeed, with a touch of humour which pained those who heard him speak, or read his writings. thus, when in march the elector's wife, sybil, asked him 'anxiously and diligently' about his own health and that of his wife and children, he answered: 'thank god, we are well, and better than we deserve of god. but no wonder, if i am sometimes shaky in the head. old age is creeping on me, which in itself is cold and unsightly, and i am ill and weak. the pitcher goes to the well until it breaks. i have lived long enough; god grant me a happy end, that this useless body may reach his people beneath the earth, and go to feed the worms. consider that i have seen the best that i shall ever see on earth. for it looks as if evil times were coming. god help his own. amen.' chapter vii. luther's later life: domestic and personal details. frequently as luther complained of his old age and ever-increasing weakness, lassitude, and uselessness, his writings and letters give evidence not only of an indomitable power and unquenchable ardour, but also, and often enough, of those cheerful, merry moods, which rose superior to all his sufferings, disappointments, and anger. he himself declared that his many enemies, especially the sectaries, who were always attacking him, always made him young again. the true source of his strength he found in his lord and saviour, whose strength is made perfect in weakness, and to whom he clung with a firm and tranquil faith. to this, indeed, we must add one particularly favourable influence, in regard to his life and calling, which had been awakened since his marriage. in speaking of his family, his wife, and his children, he is always full of thanks to god; his heart swells with emotion, and he breathes amid his heated labours and struggles a fresh and bracing air. just as, during the diet of augsburg, he had pointed out encouragingly to the elector the happy paradise which god had allowed to bloom for him in his little boys and girls, so he himself was permitted to experience and enjoy this paradise at home. in his domestic no less than in his public life he saw a vocation marked out for him by god; not, indeed, as if he, the reformer, had here any peculiar path of life, or exceptional duties to perform, but so that in that holy estate ordained for all men, however despised by arrogant monks and priests, and dishonoured by the sensual, he felt himself called on to serve god, as was the duty of all men and all christians alike, and to enjoy the blessings which god had given him. [illustration: fig. .--luther. (from a portrait by cranach, in his album, at berlin.)] five children were now growing up. the eldest, john, or hanschen (jack), was followed, during the troublous days of , by his first little daughter, elizabeth. eight months after, as he told a friend, she already said good-bye to him, to go to christ, through death to life; and he was forced to marvel how sick at heart, nay, almost womanish, he felt at her departure. in may he was comforted to some extent by the birth of a little magdalene or lenchen (lena). then followed the boys: martin in , and paul in . the former was born only a few days--if not the very day--before the feast of st. martin, and the birthday of his father; hence he received the same name. his son paul he named in memory of the great apostle, to whom he owed so much. at his baptism he expressed the hope that 'perhaps the lord god might train up in him a new enemy of the pope or the turks.' the youngest child was a little daughter, margaret, who was born in . his family included also an aunt of his wife, magdalene von bora. she had been formerly a nun in the same cloister as her niece, where she had filled the post of head-nurse. she lived among luther's children like a beloved grandmother. it was she whom luther meant by the 'aunt lena,' of whom he wrote to his little hans in saying, 'give her a kiss from me;' and when in he was able to travel homewards from schmalkald, where he had been in such imminent peril of death, he wrote to his wife: 'let the dear little children, together with aunt lena, thank their true father in heaven.' she died, probably, shortly afterwards. luther comforted her with the words: 'you will not die, but sleep away as in a cradle, and when the morning dawns, you will rise and live for ever.' [illustration: fig. .--wittenberg. (from an old engraving.)] at this time luther had two orphan nieces living with him, lene and else kaufmann of mansfeld, sisters of cyriac, whom we found with him at coburg, and also a young relative, of whom we know nothing further than that her name was anna. lene was betrothed in to the worthy treasurer of the university of wittenberg, ambrosius berndt, and luther gave the wedding. he used also from time to time to have some young student nephews at his house. [illustration: fig. .--the "_luther-house_" (previously the convent), before its recent restoration.] when his boys grew up and the time came for them to learn, he had a resident tutor for them. for his own assistance he engaged a young man as amanuensis; thus we find veit dietrich with him at coburg in this capacity. we hear afterwards of a young pupil--indeed, of two or more--who lived with dietrich at luther's house. this seems, however, to have somewhat overtaxed his wife; in the autumn of dietrich left his house on that account. [illustration: fig. .--luther's room.] luther, like other professors, used to take several students for payment to his table. among these there were men of riper years who were eager, nevertheless, to share in the studies at wittenberg, and, above all things, to make his acquaintance. besides this, his house was open to a number of guests, theologians and others, of high or low degree, who called on him in passing through the town. the dwelling-place of this large and growing household was a portion of the former convent. the elector john frederick had assigned it to luther for his own. the house, which had not been completed when the reformation began, was still unfinished when luther went there, and it needed many improvements. the present richer architectural features of the building date from a very recent restoration. it stood against the town wall, and was protected by the elbe. his own small study looked out in this direction, and formed a gable above the water of the moat; though, as he complained in , it was threatened with alterations for military purposes, and perhaps during his lifetime fell a prey to them. only one of the larger rooms of the house, situated in front, has been preserved in the recollection of posterity, and is now called luther's room. it was probably the chief sitting-room of the family. the young couple possessed at first a very slender maintenance. neither of them had any private means. when, in , luther was lying apparently on his deathbed, he had nothing to leave his wife but the cups which had been given him as presents, and it happened that he was obliged to pawn even these to find money for their immediate wants. by degrees, however, his income and property increased. his salary as professor at the university (he received no honorarium for his lectures) was raised on his marriage by the elector john from to gulden, and john frederick added gulden more--the value of a gulden at that time being equal to about marks of the present german money. he received, also, regular payments in kind. now and then he had a special present from the elector, such as a fine piece of cloth, a cask of wine, or some venison, with greetings from his highness. in john frederick sent him two casks of wine, saying that it was that year's growth of his vineyards, and that luther would find how good it was when he tasted it. luther's share of his father's property was gulden, which he was to be paid later in small instalments by his brother james, who was heir to the real estate. in bugenhagen brought him from denmark an offering of gulden, and two years afterwards the danish king gave him and his children an allowance of gulden a year. luther never troubled himself much about his expenses, and gave with generous liberality what he earned. his wife kept things together for the household, managed it with business-like energy and talent, and tried to add to their income. they enlarged their garden by buying some more strips adjoining it, as well as a field. in luther purchased for gulden from a brother of his wife, who was in needy circumstances, the small farm of zülsdorf or zulsdorf, between leipzig and borna--it must not be confounded with another village of the same name. the market at wittenberg being usually very poorly furnished, his wife sought to supply their domestic wants by her own economy. she planted the garden with all sorts of trees, among these even mulberry-trees and fig-trees, and she cultivated also hops; and there was a small fish-pond. this little property she loved to manage and superintend in person. at wittenberg she brewed, as was then the custom, their own beer, the convent being privileged in that respect. we hear of her keeping a number of pigs, and arranging for their sale. luther incidentally makes mention of a coachman among his other servants. finally, in , luther purchased a small house near his residence at the convent, fearing that he would have to give up the latter entirely for the work of fortification, and thus be prevented from leaving it to his wife. he was only obliged in ten years to pay off a portion of the purchase money. in this happy married life and home the great reformer found his peace and refreshment; in it he found his vocation as a man, a husband, and a father. speaking from his own experience he said: 'next to god's word, the world has no more precious treasure than holy matrimony. god's best gift is a pious, cheerful, god-fearing, home-keeping wife, with whom you may live peacefully, to whom you can entrust your goods, and body, and life.' he speaks of the married state, moreover, as a life which, if rightly led, is full to overflowing of good works. he knows, on the other hand, of many 'stubborn and strange couples, who neither care for their children, nor love each other from their hearts.' such people, he said, were not human beings; they made their homes a hell. in his language about this life and his own conduct in it, there is no trace of sentimentality, exaggerated emotion, or artificial idealism. it is a strong, sturdy, and, as many have thought, a somewhat rough genuineness of nature, but at the same time full of tenderness, purity, and fervour; and with it is combined that heartfelt and loyal devotion to his heavenly creator and lord, and to his will and his commands, which marked the character of luther to the last. with regard to his children, luther had resolved from the moment of their birth to consecrate them to god, and wean them from a wicked, corrupt, and accursed world. in several of his letters he entreats his friends with great earnestness to stand godfather to one of his children, and to help the poor little heathen to become a christian, and pass from the death of sin to a holy and blessed regeneration. in making this request of a young bohemian nobleman, then staying in his house, on behalf of his son martin, he grew so earnest that, to the surprise of all present, his voice trembled; this, he said, was caused by the holy spirit of god, for the cause he was pleading was god's, and it demanded reverence. and yet, in the simple, natural, innocent, and happy ways of children he recognised the precious handiwork of god and his protecting hand. he loved to watch the games and pleasures of his little ones; all they did was so spontaneous and so natural. children, he said, believe so simply and undoubtedly that god is in heaven and is their god and their dear father, and that there is everlasting life. on hearing one day one of his children prattling about this life and of the great joy in heaven with eating, and dancing, and so forth, he said, 'their life is the most blessed and the best; they have none but pure thoughts and happy imaginations.' at the sight of his little children seated round the table, he called to mind the exhortation of jesus, that we must 'become as little children;' and added, 'ah! dear god! thou hast done clumsily in exalting children--such poor little simpletons--so high. is it just and right that thou shouldst reject the wise, and receive the foolish? but god our lord has purer thoughts than we have; he must, therefore, refine us, as said the fanatics; he must hew great boughs and chips from us, before he makes such children and little simpletons of us.' in what a childlike spirit luther understood to talk to his children is shown by his letter from coburg to his little hans, then fourteen years old. he himself taught them to pray, to sing, and to repeat the catechism. of his little daughter margaret he could tell one of her godfathers how she had learnt to sing hymns when only four years old. his hymn 'from the highest heaven i come,' the freshest, most joyful, most childlike song that has ever been heard from children's lips at christmas, he composed as a father who celebrated that joyous festival with his own children. it appeared first in the year . he might well, after the manner of old festival plays, have let an angel step in among them, who in the opening verses should bring them the good tidings in the gospel, to which they should answer with 'therefore let us all be joyful.' the words 'therefore i am always joyful, free to dance and free to sing,' call to mind an old custom of accompanying the christmas hymn with a dance. luther warned against all outbursts of passion and undue severity towards children, and carefully guarded himself against such errors, remembering the bitter experiences of his own childhood in that respect. but he could be angry and strict enough when occasion required; he used to say he would rather have a dead son than a bad one. there was no really good school at wittenberg for his boys, and luther himself could not devote as much time to them as they required. he took a resident tutor for them, a young theologian. his boy john nevertheless gave some trouble with his teaching and bringing up. his father, contrary to his own wishes, seems to have been too weak, and his mother's fondness for her first-born seems to have somewhat spoilt him. luther gave the boy over afterwards to his friend mark crodel, the rector of the school at torgau, whom he held in high respect as a grammarian, and as a pedagogue of grave and strict morals. [illustration: fig. .--luther's daughter 'lene.' (from cranach's portrait.)] his favourite child was little lena, a pious, gentle, affectionate little girl, and devoted to him with her whole heart. a charming picture of her remains, by cranach, a friend of the family. but she died in the bloom of early youth, on september , , after a long and severe illness. the grief he had felt at the loss of his daughter elizabeth was now renewed and intensified. when she was lying on her sick-bed, he said, 'i love her very much indeed; but, dear god, if it is thy will to take her hence, i would gladly she were with thee.' to magdalene herself he said, 'lena, dear, my little daughter, thou wouldst love to remain here with thy father; art thou willing to go to that other father?' 'yes, dear father,' she answered; 'just as god wills.' and when she was dying, he fell on his knees beside her bed, wept bitterly, and prayed for her redemption, and she fell asleep in his arms. as she lay in her coffin, he looked at her and exclaimed, 'ah! my darling lena, thou wilt rise again and shine like a star--yea, as the sun;' and added, 'i am happy in the spirit, but in the flesh i am very sorrowful. the flesh will not be subdued: parting troubles one above measure; it is a wonderful thing to think that she is assuredly in peace, and that all is well with her, and yet to be so sad.' to the mourners he said, 'i have sent a saint to heaven: could mine be such a death as hers, i would welcome such a death this moment.' he expressed the same sorrow, and the same exultation in his letters to his friends. to jonas he wrote: 'you will have heard that my dearest daughter magdalene is born again in the everlasting kingdom of christ. although i and my wife ought only to thank god with joy for her happy departure, whereby she has escaped the power of the world, the flesh, the turks and the devil, yet so strong is natural love that we cannot bear it without sobs and sighs from the heart, without a bitter sense of death in ourselves. so deeply printed on our hearts are her ways, her words, her gestures, whether alive or dying, that even christ's death cannot drive away this agony.' his little hans, whom his sick sister longed to see once more, he had sent for from torgau a fortnight before she died: he wrote for that purpose to crodel, saying 'i would not have my conscience reproach me afterwards for having neglected anything.' but when several weeks later, about christmas-time, under the influence of grief and the tender words which his mother had spoken to him, a desire came over the boy to leave torgau and live at home, his father exhorted him to conquer his sorrow like a man, not to increase by his own the grief of his mother, and to obey god, who had appointed him, through his parents' direction, to live at torgau. the care of the children and of the whole household fell to the share of frau luther, and her husband could trust her with it in perfect confidence. she was a woman of strong, ruling, practical nature, who enjoyed hard work and plenty of it. she served her husband at all times, after her own manner, with faithful and affectionate devotion. he must often have felt grateful, amidst his physical and mental sufferings, and the violent storms and temptations that vexed his soul, that a helpmate of such a sound constitution, such strong nerves, and such a clever, sensible mind should have fallen to his share. luther lived with her in thankful love and harmony; nor have even the calumnies of malicious enemies been able to cast a shadow of doubt upon the perfect concord of his married life. in his 'table talk' he says of her: 'i am, thank god, very well, for i have a pious, faithful wife, on whom a man may safely rest his heart.' and again he said once to her, 'katie, you have a pious husband, who loves you; you are an empress.' in words now grave, now humorous, he told her of his tender love for her; and how trustful and open-hearted were their relations to each other we gather from the way in which he mocks and occasionally teases her for her little weaknesses. in later life and in his last letters he calls her his 'heartily beloved housewife' and his 'darling,' and he often signs himself 'your love' and 'your old love,' and again 'your dear lord.' still he said frankly and quietly that his original suspicion that catharine was proud was well-founded. in some of his letters he speaks of her as his 'lord katie' and his 'gracious wife,' and of himself as her 'willing servant.' once he declared that if he had to marry again, he would carve an obedient wife out of stone, as he despaired of finding obedience in wives. he spoke also of the talkativeness of his katie. referring to her loving but over-anxious care for him on his last journey, he called her a holy, careful woman. from her thrift and energy she gained from him the nicknames of lady zulsdorf, and lady of the pigmarket; thus one of his last letters is addressed to 'my heartily beloved housewife, catharine, lady luther, lady doctor, lady zulsdorf, lady of the pigmarket, and whatever else she may be.' the 'careful' catharine was not permitted to check the kind liberality of her husband. his friend mathesius tells us, of their early married life, 'a poor man made him a pitiful tale of distress, and having no cash with him, luther came to his wife--she being then confined--for the god-parents' money, and brought it to the poor man, saying, 'god is rich, he will supply what is wanted.' afterwards, however, he grew more careful, seeing how often he was imposed upon. 'rogues,' he said, 'have sharpened my wits.' an example of how particular, nay anxious, he was never even to let it seem that he sought for presents or other profit for himself, was given in his letter to amsdorf, declining a gift of venison. he wrote once to the elector john, who had sent him an offering: 'i have unfortunately more, especially from your highness, than i can conscientiously keep. as a preacher, it is not fitting for me to enjoy a superfluity, nor do i covet it; ... therefore i beseech your highness to wait until i ask of you.' in , when bugenhagen brought to him the hundred gulden from the king of denmark, he wished to give him half of it, for the service bugenhagen had rendered him during his absence. for his office of preacher in the town church he never received any payment; the town from time to time made him a present of wine from the council-cellar, and lime and stones for building his house. for his writings he received nothing from the publishers. against over-anxious cares and troubles, and setting her heart too much on worldly possessions, he earnestly cautioned his wife, and insisted that amid the numerous household matters she should not neglect to read the bible. once in he promised her fifty gulden if she would read the bible through, whereupon, as he told a friend, it became a 'very serious matter to her.' luther frequently assisted his wife in her household. he was very fond of gardening and agriculture, and we have seen how he sent commissions to friends for stocking his garden at wittenberg. on one occasion, when going to fish with his wife in their little pond, he noticed with joy how she took more pleasure in her few fish than many a nobleman did in his great lakes with many hundred draughts of fishes. in he had to order a chest at torgau for his 'lord katie,' for their store of house-linen. of the handsome and elaborate way in which catharine thought of ornamenting the exterior of their house--the home of her illustrious husband--a fine specimen remains in the door of the luther-haus at wittenberg. luther wrote, by her wish, to a friend at pirna in , pastor lauterbach, about a 'carved house-door,' for the width of which she sent the measurement. the door, carved in sandstone, and bearing the date , has on one side luther's bust and on the other his crest, and below are two small seats, built there according to the custom of the times. [illustration: fig. .--door of luther's house at wittenberg.] in view of his approaching death, luther wished, in , to provide for his devoted wife by a will. he left her for her lifetime and absolute property the little farm of zulsdorf, the small house at wittenberg (already mentioned), and his goblets and other treasures, such as rings, chains, &c, which he valued at about , gulden. in doing so, he thanked her for having been to him a 'pious, true wife at all times, full of loving, tender care towards him, and for having borne to him and trained, by god's blessing, five children surviving.' and he wished to provide therewith that she 'must not receive from the children, but the children from her; that they must honour and obey her, as god hath commanded.' he further bade her pay off the debt which was still owing (probably for the house), amounting to about gulden, because, with the exception of his few treasures, he had no money to leave her. in making this provision he no doubt considered that, according to the law, the inheritance of a married woman who had formerly been a nun might be disputed, together with the legitimacy of her marriage. luther did not wish to bind himself in his will to legal forms. he besought the elector graciously to protect his bequest, and concluded his will with these proud words: 'finally, seeing i do not use legal forms, for which i have my own reasons, i desire all men to take these words as mine--a man known openly in heaven, on earth, and in hell also, who has enough reputation or authority to be trusted and believed better than any notary. to me, a poor, unworthy, miserable sinner, god, the father of all mercy, has entrusted the gospel of his dear son, and has made me true and faithful therein, and has so preserved and found me hitherto, that through me many in this world have received the gospel, and hold me as a teacher of the truth, despite of the pope's ban, of emperor, king, princes, priests, and all the wrath of the devil. let them believe me also in this small matter, especially as this is my hand, not altogether unknown. in hope that it will be enough for men to say and prove that this is the earnest, deliberate meaning of dr. martin luther, god's notary and witness in his gospel, confirmed by his own hand and seal.' the will is dated the day of the epiphany, january , , and was witnessed by melancthon, cruciger, and bugenhagen, whose attestations and signatures appear below. after luther's death, john frederick immediately ratified it. as regards his servants, luther was particularly careful that they should have nothing to complain of against him, for the devil, he said, had a sharp eye upon him, to be able to cast a slur upon his teaching. to those who served him faithfully, he was ever gentle, grateful, and even indulgent. there was a certain wolfgang, or wolf sieberger, whom he had taken as early as into his service at the convent--an honest but weak man, who knew of no other means of livelihood. him luther retained in his service throughout his life, and tried to make some provision for his future. he once sought, as we have seen, to practise turning with him, but of this nothing further is related. he loved, too, to joke with him in his own hearty manner. when, in , wolf built a fowling-floor or place for catching birds, he reprimanded him for it in a written indictment, making the 'good, honourable' birds themselves lodge a complaint against him. they pray luther to prevent his servant, or at least to insist upon wolf (who was a sleepy fellow), strewing grain for them in the evening, and then not rising before eight o'clock in the morning; else, they would pray to god to make him catch in the day-time frogs and snails in their stead, and let fleas and other insects crawl over him at night; for why should not wolf rather employ his wrath and vindictiveness against the sparrows, daws, mice, and such like? when a servant named rischmann parted from him, in , after several years of hard work, luther sent word to his wife from torgau, where he was then staying with the elector, to dismiss him 'honourably,' and with a suitable present. 'think,' he wrote, 'how often we have given to bad men, when all has been lost; so be liberal, and do not let such a good, fellow want..... do not fail; for a goblet is there. think from whom you got it. god will give us another, i know.' his guests valued highly his company and conversation, especially those men who came from far and near to visit him. several of them have recorded sayings from his lips on these occasions. luther's 'table talk,' which we possess now in print, is founded for the most part on records given by viet dietrich and lauterbach just mentioned, who before his call to pirna in , when deacon at wittenberg, was one of luther's closest friends and his daily guest. these memorials, however, have been elaborated and recast many times, by a strange hand, in an arbitrary and unfortunate manner. a publication of the original text, from which recently a diary of lauterbach, of the year , has already appeared, may now be looked for. last, but not least, we have to mention john mathesius, who, after having been a student at wittenberg in , and then rector of the school at joachimsthal, returned to study at wittenberg from to , and obtained the honour which he sought for, of being a guest at luther's table. deeply impressed as he was by his intercourse with the reformer, he described his impressions to his congregation at joachimsthal, when afterwards their pastor, in addresses from the pulpit, which were printed, and gave them a sketch of luther's life, with numerous anecdotes about him. he thus became luther's first biographer, and, from his personal intimacy with his friend, and his own true-heartedness, fervour, and genuineness of nature, he must ever remain endeared to the followers and admirers of the great reformer. [illustration: fig. .--mathesius. (from an old woodcut.)] mathesius tells us, indeed, how luther used often to sit at table wrapt in deep and anxious thought, and would sometimes keep a cloister-like silence throughout the meal. at times even he would work between the courses, or at meals or immediately after, dictate sermons to friends who had to preach, but who wanted practice in the art. but when once conversation was opened, it flowed with ease and freedom, and, as mathesius says, even merrily. the friends used to call luther's speeches their 'table-spice.' his topics varied according to circumstances and the occasion--things spiritual and temporal; questions of faith and conduct; the works of god and the deeds of man; events past and present; hints and short practical suggestions for ecclesiastical life and office; and apophthegms of worldly wisdom; all enriched with proverbs of every kind and german rhymes, which luther had a great aptitude in composing. jocular moods were mingled with deep gravity and even indignation. but in all he said, as in all he did, he was guided constantly by the loftiest principles, by the highest considerations of morality and religious truth, and that in the simple and straightforward manner which was his nature, utterly free from affectation or artificial effort. in these his discourses, it is true, as in his writings and letters, nay, sometimes in his addresses from the pulpit, expressions and remarks fell occasionally from his lips which sound to modern ears extremely coarse. his was a frank, rugged nature, with nothing slippery, nothing secretly impure about it. his friends and guests spoke of the 'chaste lips' of luther: 'he was,' says mathesius, 'a foe to unchastity and loose talk. as long as i have been with him i have never heard a shameful word fall from his lips.' it was a great contrast to the coarse indecencies which he denounced with such fierce indignation in the monks, his former brethren, as also to the more subtle indelicacies which were practised in those days by so many elegant humanists of modern culture, both ecclesiastics and laymen. luther's conversation was also remarkable for its freedom from any spiteful or frivolous gossip, of which even at wittenberg there was then no lack. of such scandal-mongers, who sought to pry out evil in their neighbours, luther used frequently to say, 'they are regular pigs, who care nothing about the roses and violets in the garden, but only stick their snouts into the dirt.' after dinner there was usually music with the guests and children; sacred and secular songs were sung, together with german and sometimes old latin hymns. luther also had a bowling-alley made for his young friends, where they would disport themselves with running and jumping. he liked to throw the first ball himself, and was heartily laughed at when he missed the mark. he would turn then to the young folk, and remind them in his pleasant way that many a one who thought he would do better, and knock down all the pins at once, would very likely miss them all, as they would often have to find in future their life and calling. in his own personal relations towards god, luther followed persistently the road which he saw revealed by christ, and which he pointed out to others. he never lost the consciousness of his own unworthiness, and therefore unholiness. in this consciousness he sought refuge, with simple and childlike faith, in god's love and mercy, which thus assured him of forgiveness and salvation, of victory over the world and the devil, and of the freedom wherewith a child of god may use the things of this world. he clung fondly to simple, childlike forms of faith, and to common rites and ordinances. every morning he used to repeat with his children the ten commandments, the creed, the lord's prayer, and a psalm. 'i do this,' he says in one of his sermons, 'in order to keep up the habit, and not let the mildew grow upon me.' he took part faithfully in the church services; he who was wont to pray so unceasingly and fervently in his own chamber declared that praying in company with others soothed him far more than private prayer at home. lofty, nay proud as was the self-assurance he expressed in his mission, and though possessed, as mathesius says, of all the heart and courage of a true man, yet he was personally of a very plain and unasserting manner: mathesius calls him the most humble of men, always willing to follow good advice from others. like a brother he dealt with the lowliest of his brethren, while mixing at the same time with the highest in the land with the most perfect and unconscious simplicity. troubled souls, who complained to him how hard they found it to possess the faith he preached, he comforted with the assurance that it was no easier matter for himself, and that he had to pray god daily to increase his faith. his saying, 'a great doctor must always remain a pupil,' was meant especially for himself. the modesty which made him willing, even in the early days of his reforming labours, to yield the first place to his younger friend melancthon, he displayed to the end, as we have seen in reference to melancthon's principal work, the 'loci communes.' whenever he was asked for a really good book for theological studies and the pure exposition of the gospel, he named the bible first and then melancthon's book. during the diet at augsburg we heard how highly he esteemed the words even of a brenz, in comparison with his own. touching melancthon, we must add an earlier public utterance of luther's, dating from : 'i must root out,' he said, 'the trunks and stems.... i am the rough woodman who has to make a path, but philip goes quietly and peacefully along it, builds and plants, sows and waters at his pleasure.' he said nothing of how much others depended on his own power and independence of mind, not only as regarded the task of making the path, but in the whole business of planting and working, and how melancthon only stamped the gold which luther had dug up and melted in the furnace. the later years of his life were embittered by the conviction, gradually forced upon him, that his former strength and energy had deserted him. his remarks on this subject seem often exaggerated, but they were certainly meant in all seriousness: he felt as he did, because the urgent need of completing his task remained so vividly impressed upon his mind. he wished and hoped that god would suffer him--the now useless instrument of his word--to stand at least behind the doors of his kingdom. he wrote to myconius, when the latter was dangerously ill, saying that his friend must really survive him: 'i beg this; i will it, and let my will be done, for it seeks not my own pleasure, but the glory of god.' with childlike joy he recognised god's gifts in nature, in garden and field, plants and cattle. this joy finds constant expression in his 'table talk,' and even in his sermons. it was chiefly awakened by the beauties of spring. with sorrow he declares it to be the well-earned penalty of his past sins that in his old age he should not be able, as he might do and had need of doing, on account of the burdens of business, to enjoy the gardens, the bud and bloom of tree and flower, and the song of the birds. 'we should be so happy in such a paradise, if only there were no sin and death.' but he looks beyond this to another and a heavenly world, where all would be still more beautiful, and where an everlasting spring would reign and abide. among all the gifts which god has bestowed upon us for our use and enjoyment, music was to him the most precious; he even assigned to it the highest honour next to theology. he himself had considerable talent for the art, and not only played the lute, and sang melodiously with his seemingly weak but penetrating voice, but was able even to compose. he valued music particularly as the means of driving away the devil and his temptations, as well as for its softening and refining influence. 'the heart,' he said, 'grows satisfied, refreshed, and strengthened by music.' he noticed, as a wonder wrought by god, how the air was able to give forth, by a slight movement of the tongue and throat, guided by the mind, such sweet and powerful sounds; and what an infinite variety there was of voice and language among the many thousand birds, and still more so among men. luther's best and most valued means of natural refreshment, and the recreation of his mind and body, remained always his intercourse and friendship with others--with wife and children, with his friends and neighbours. such was his own experience, and so he would advise the sorrowful who sought his counsel in like manner to come out of their solitude. he saw in this intercourse also an ordinance of divine wisdom and love. a friendly talk and a good merry song he often declared to be the best weapon against evil and sorrowful thoughts. about his own bodily care and enjoyment, even with all his conviction of christian liberty and his hostility to monkish scruples and sanctity, he cared very little. he was content with simple fare, and he would forget to eat and drink for days amid the press of work. his friends wondered how such a portly frame could be consistent with such a very meagre diet, and not one of his hostile contemporaries has ever been able to allege against him that he had belied by his own conduct the zeal with which he inveighed against the immoderate eating and drinking of his fellow-germans; but he preserved his christian liberty in this matter. in the evenings he would say to his pupils at the supper-table, 'you young fellows, you must drink the elector's health and mine, the old man's, in a bumper. we must look for our pillows and bolsters in the tankard.' and in his lively and merry entertainments with his friends the 'cup that cheers' was always there. he could even call for a toast when he heard bad news, for next to a fervent lord's prayer and a good heart, there was no better antidote, he used to say, to care. his physical sufferings were chiefly confined to the pains in his head, which never wholly left him, and which increased from time to time, with fresh attacks of giddiness and fainting. the morning was always his worst time. his old enemy, moreover--the stone--returned in with alarming severity. some time since an abscess had appeared on his left leg, which seemed at the time to have healed. finding that a fresh breaking out of it seemed to relieve his head, his friend ratzeberger, the elector's physician, induced him to have a seton applied, and the issue thus kept open. his hair became white. he had long been speaking of himself as a prematurely old man, and quite worn out. in spite of his sufferings he retained his peculiar bearing with head thrown back and upturned face. his features, especially the mouth, now showed more plainly even than in earlier life the calm strength acquired by struggles and suffering. the pathos which later portraits have often given to his countenance is not apparent in the earlier ones, but rather an expression of melancholy. the deep glow and energy of his spirit, which even cranach's pencil has failed wholly to represent, seems to have found chief expression in his dark eyes. these evidently struck the old rector of wittenberg, pollich, and the legate caietan at augsburg; it was with these that, on his arrival at worms, the legate aleander saw him look around him 'like a demon'; it was these that 'sparkled like stars' on the young swiss kessler, so that he could 'hardly endure their gaze.' after his death, another acquaintance of his called them 'falcon's eyes'; and melancthon saw in the brown pupils, encircled by a yellow ring, the keen, courageous eye of a lion. this fire in luther never died. under the pressure of suffering and weakness, it only burst forth when stirred by opposition into new and fiercer flames. it became, indeed, more easily provoked in later life, and produced in him an irritation and restless impatience with the world and all its doings. his full and clear gaze was fixed on the hereafter. chapter viii. luther's last year and death. the emperor charles, after concluding the peace of crespy with king francis, turned his policy entirely to ecclesiastical affairs. the pope could no longer resist his urgent demand for a council, and accordingly a bull, of november , summoned one to assemble at trent in the following march. with regard to the turks, the emperor sought to liberate his hands by means of a peaceful settlement and concessions. he entered into negotiations with them in , in which he was supported by an ambassador from france. these led ultimately to the result that the turks left him in possession, on payment of a tribute, of those frontier fortresses which he still occupied, and which they had previously demanded from him, and agreed to a truce for a year and a half. 'this is the way,' exclaimed luther, 'in which war is now waged against those who have been denounced so many years as enemies to the name of christ, and against whom the romish satan has amassed such heaps of gold by indulgences and other innumerable means of plunder.' meanwhile the elector john had commissioned his theologians to prepare the scheme of reformation which was to be submitted according to the decree of the diet at spires. on january , , they sent him a draft compiled by melancthon. luther headed with his own the list of signatures. it was a last great message of peace from his hand. the draft set forth clearly and distinctly the principles of the evangelical church; but expressed a hope that the bishops of the catholic church would fulfil the duties of their office, and promised them obedience if they accepted and furthered the preaching of the gospel in its purity. this was too moderate for the elector. his chancellor brück, however, assured him that luther and the others were agreed with melancthon, though the document bore no evidence of 'doctor martin's restless spirit.' nor did luther even here insist on that strong expression of opinion with regard to the lord's supper which he himself gave to the doctrine of christ's bodily presence in the sacrament. they only spoke briefly of the 'receiving the true body and blood of christ,' and of the object and benefit of this reception for the soul and for faith. but luther now unburdened his heart with redoubled energy and passion against the pope and the popedom, of which no mention had been made in the draft. in january he learned of that papal letter in which the holy father had protested to his son the emperor, with pathetic indignation, against the decrees of the diet at spires. luther at first took it seriously for a forgery--a mere pasquinade--until he was assured by the elector of the genuineness of this and another and similar letter, and thus provoked to take public steps against it. he thought that, if the brief was genuine, the pope would sooner worship the turks--nay, the devil himself--than ever dream of consenting to a reform in accordance with god's word. accordingly, he composed his pamphlet 'against the popedom at rome, instituted by the devil.' in this his 'restless spirit' spoke out once more with all its strength; he poured out the vials of his wrath in the plainest and most violent language--more violent than in any of his earlier writings--against the antichrist of rome. the very first word gives the pope the title of 'the most hellish father.' luther is not surprised that to him and his curia the words 'free christian german council' are sheer poison, death, and hell. but he asks him, what is the use of a council at all if the pope arrogates to himself beforehand, as his decrees fulminate, the right of altering and tearing up its decisions. far better to spare the expense and trouble of such a farce, and say, 'we will believe and worship your hellship without any councils.' the piece of arch-knavery practised by the pope in himself announcing a council against emperor and empire was, in fact, nothing new. the popes from the very first had practised all kinds of devilish wickedness, treachery, and murder against the german emperors. luther recalls to mind how a pope had caused the noble conradin to be executed with the sword. paul iii., in his admonition to his 'son' the emperor charles, referred in pious strain to the example of eli, the high-priest, who had been punished for not rebuking his sons for their sins. luther now points him to his own, the pope's natural son, whom the pope was so anxious to enrich; he asks if father paul then had nothing to punish in him. it was well known what tricks paul himself, with his insatiable maw, was playing together with his son with the property of the church. further, he puts before the pope his cardinals and followers, who forsooth needed no admonition for their detestable iniquities. but his dear son charles, it seemed, had wished to procure for the german fatherland a happy peace and unity in religion, and to have a christian council, and, finding he had been made a fool of by the pope for four-and-twenty years, sat last to convene a national council. this was his sin in the eyes of the pope, who would like to see all germany drowned in her own blood: the pope could not forgive the emperor for thwarting his horrible design. luther dwells at length on such reflections in his introduction, and then says 'i must now stop, for my head is too weak, and i have not yet come to what i meant to say in this treatise.' this was the three points, as follow: whether, indeed, it was true that the pope was the head of christendom; that none could judge and depose him; and that he had brought the holy roman empire to the germans, as he boasted so arrogantly he had done. on these points he then proceeds to enlarge once more with a wealth of searching proof. on the last point we hear him speak once more as a true german. he wished that the emperor had left the pope his anointing and coronation, for what made him truly emperor was not these ceremonies, but the election of the princes. the pope had never yielded a hairsbreadth to the empire, but, on the contrary, had plundered it immoderately by his lying and deceit and idolatry. the book concludes thus: 'this devilish popery is the supreme evil on earth, and the one that touches us most closely; it is one in which all the devils combine together. god help us! amen.' cranach published a series of sketches or caricatures, controversial and satirical, against the popedom, some of which are cynically coarse, one of them representing to his countrymen the murder of conradin, the pope himself beheading him, and another a german emperor with the pope standing on his neck. luther added short verses to these pictures. but he disapproved of one of cranach's caricatures, as insulting to woman. we have seen already what degree of importance luther attached to a council appointed by the pope. the protestants could not, of course, consent to submit to the one at trent. on the other hand, their demand that the council must be a 'free' and a 'christian' one in their sense of the terms was an impossibility for the emperor and the catholics; for it meant not only their independence of the pope--which he could never assent to--but also a free reversion to the single rule and standard of holy scripture, with a possible rejection of tradition and the decrees of previous councils. the emperor thereupon granted something for appearance sake to the protestant states by arranging another conference on religion to be held at ratisbon in january . he told the pope, in june , that he could not engage to make war on the protestants for at least another year. the council was opened in december , without the protestants taking any part in it. while all this was going on, the newly-opened rupture between luther and the swiss remained unhealed. in the spring of bullinger published a clever reply to his 'short confession.' it could, however, effect no reconciliation, for, mild as was its language in comparison with the violence of luther's, it made too much merit of this mildness, while, as calvin, for example, accused the author, it imputed more to luther than common fairness justified, took him to task for his manner of speaking, and contributed nothing to an understanding in point of dogma. from the impression produced by this letter upon luther, fears were entertained again for melancthon, who had continued to maintain a friendly correspondence with bullinger; and melancthon himself felt very anxious about the result. but not one harsh or suspicious or unkind word was uttered by luther. he only wished to answer the zurichers briefly and to the point, for he had written, he said, quite enough on the subject against zwingli and oecolampadius, and did not want to spoil the last years of his life with arrogant and idle chatter. he only inserted afterwards in a series of theses, with which he replied in the late summer of that year to a fresh condemnation pronounced against him by the theologians of louvain, an article against the zwinglians, declaring that they and all those who disgraced the sacrament by denying the actual bodily reception of the true body of christ were undoubtedly heretics and schismatics from the christian church. this doctrinal antagonism was sufficient even now, when the test of actual war was imminent, to keep the swiss excluded from the league of schmalkald. luther still continued, in the face of menaces, to trust in god, his helper hitherto, and he found in the latest signs of the times still more convincing proof of the end, which seemed to be at hand. in the miserable oppression of the germano-roman empire by the turks he saw a sign of its approaching downfall, as also in the impotence displayed by the imperial government even in small matters of administration. there was no longer any justice, any government; it was an empire without an empire; and he rejoiced to believe that with the end of this empire the last day--the day of salvation--was approaching. but more painful and harassing to him than even the threats of the romanists and the attacks upon his teaching, which his own words, he was convinced, had long since refuted, was the condition of wittenberg and the university. it was a favourite reproach against him of the catholics that his doctrine yielded no fruits of strict morality. notwithstanding all the rebukes which he had uttered for years, we hear of the old vices still rampant at wittenberg--the vices of gluttony, of increasing intemperance and luxury, especially at baptisms and weddings; of pride in dress and the low-cut bodices of ladies; of rioting in the streets; of the low women who corrupted the students; of extortion, deceit, and usury in trade; and of the indifference and inability of the authorities and the police to put down open immorality and misdemeanours. things of which there were growing complaints at that time in the german towns and universities became intolerable to the aged reformer, who had no longer the power to bring his whole influence to bear upon his own fellow-townsmen. in the summer of he was tortured again by his old enemy the stone. on midsummer day his tormentor--as he wrote to a friend--would have done for him had god not willed it otherwise. 'i would rather die,' he adds, 'than be at the mercy of such a tyrant.' a few weeks later he sought refreshment for mind and body in a journey. he first travelled with his colleague cruciger by way of leipzig to zeitz, where cruciger had to settle a dispute between two clergymen. on the road he was cordially received by several acquaintances, and that did him good. at zeitz he took part in the proceedings. he was anxious to proceed farther, to merseburg, for his friend there, george of anhalt, had seized the opportunity to send him a pressing invitation, in order to receive from him his consecration. but the painful experiences he had made at wittenberg pursued him on his travels, and were aggravated by much that he heard about his own town. on july he wrote from zeitz to his wife, saying, 'i should be so glad not to return to wittenberg; my heart is grown cold, so that i don't care about being there any longer.... so i will roam about and rather beg my bread than vex my poor remaining days with the disorderly doings at wittenberg, with my hard and precious labour all lost.' he actually wished that they should sell the house and garden at wittenberg, and go and live at zulsdorf. the elector, he said, would surely leave him his salary at least for one year more, near as he was to the close of his fast-waning life, and he would spend the money in improving his little farm. he begged his wife, if she would, to let bugenhagen and melancthon know this. the excitement, however, as might be hoped, was only temporary. to quiet his emotion, the university at once sent bugenhagen and melancthon to him, the wittenberg magistrate sent the burgomaster, and the elector his private physician ratzeberger. the elector also reminded him in a friendly manner that he ought to have apprised him beforehand of his intention to take this journey, to enable him to provide an escort and defray his expenses. the wittenberg theologians, sent as deputies to merseburg, had now arrived there, and met luther on august , at the solemn consecration of george. luther stayed with his host for a couple of days, during which he preached in the neighbouring town of halle, and was here presented by the town-council with a cup of gold. this journey improved his health. after having paid a visit to the elector, at his desire, at torgau, he returned on the l th of the month to wittenberg, where an attempt was now being made to put down, by an ordinance of police, the immorality he had denounced. he now resumed his lectures, in which he was still busily engaged with the book of genesis, and which he brought at length to an end on november . he also preached at wittenberg several times in the afternoons, it being unadvisable for him to do so any longer in the mornings on account of his health. he further occupied himself in writing a sequel to his first book against the papacy, and at the same time meditated a letter against the sacramentarians. the autumn of this year brought with it a matter from mansfeld, having nothing indeed to do with religion or doctrine, but which called him away from wittenberg. the counts of mansfeld had long been quarrelling among themselves about certain rights and revenues, especially in connection with church patronage. luther had already entreated them earnestly in god's name to come to a peaceful agreement. they now at length agreed so far as to invite his mediation, and obtained permission from the elector, who, however, would rather have seen luther spared this trouble. luther all his life had cherished a warm and grateful affection for this his early home; whilst labouring for his great fatherland of germany, he called mansfeld his own special fatherland. wearied as he was, he resolved to serve his home once more. at the beginning of october, accordingly, he journeyed thither with melancthon and jonas, but his visit proved in vain, since the counts, before he could do anything for them, were called away to war. he held himself in readiness, however, to make a second attempt. in the meantime luther quickly composed another pamphlet, with reference to the duke of brunswick, who three years before had been driven from his country by the landgrave philip and the saxon princes, and had now suddenly invaded it again, but was defeated and taken prisoner by the combined forces of the allied princes, assisted also by the counts of mansfeld. at the instigation of the chancellor brück, and with the consent of his elector, luther addressed a public letter to the princes and the landgrave, and had it printed. in it he warned them not to allow--as philip for various reasons seemed inclined to do--so dangerous a prisoner to go free, and thereby to tempt god. behind the duke he saw the pope and the papists, without whom he would never have been able to carry on his campaign. they should at any rate wait and see until the thoughts of hearts should be further revealed. none the less did he warn the victors against self-exaltation and arrogance. once more he celebrated his birthday in the circle of his friends, melancthon, bugenhagen, cruciger, and some others. just before that day a rich present of wine and fish had arrived from the elector. luther was very merry with his friends, but could not restrain sad thoughts of an apostasy from the gospel which might follow with many after his death. at the conclusion of his lecture on november he said: 'this is the beloved genesis; god grant that after me it may be better done. i can do no more--i am weak. pray god that he may grant me a good and happy end.' he began no new lectures. at christmas time, then, and in the depth of cold, luther journeyed to mansfeld with melancthon. he wished, as he wrote to count albert, to risk the time and effort, notwithstanding the pressing work he had on hand, in order to lay himself in peace in his coffin in the place where he had previously reconciled his beloved masters. but his wish was not to be fulfilled. anxiety for melancthon, who was ill, urged him home, though he promised to return. on his homeward journey, in spite of the continued severity of the cold, he preached at halle, concluding his sermon with the words, 'well, since it is very cold, i will now end. you have other good and faithful preachers.' he had carefully brought his melancthon home. when now the new conference on religion was to be held at ratisbon, and a wittenberg theologian was to be sent to it, he begged the elector not to employ his friend again for the 'useless and idle colloquy,' especially as there was not a man among his opponents who was worth anything. 'what would they do,' he wrote, 'if philip were dead or ill, as indeed he is--so ill that i rejoice to have brought him home from mansfeld. it is his duty henceforth to spare himself; he is better employed in his bed than at the conference. the young doctors must come to the fore and take up the word after us.' of his opponents and their designs, he said 'they take us for asses, who don't understand their vulgar and foolish attacks.' he described his own condition, in a letter of january , in these words: 'old, spent, worn, weary, cold, and with but one eye to see with.' he must have lost therefore the sight of one of his eyes, but we know nothing definite beyond this. he adds, however, that for his age his health was fairly good. melancthon was spared a journey to ratisbon, as also a third visit to mansfeld. luther ventured the latter, however, in january. he took with him his three sons, together with their tutor, and his own servant, that they might become acquainted with his beloved native home. when, shortly before, some students at his table heard of a strange and ominous fall of a large clock at midnight, he said, 'do not fear; this means that i shall soon die. i am weary of the world, so let us rather part like well-filled guests at a common inn.' [illustration: fig. .--luther in . (from a woodcut of cranach.)] on the rd of the month he left wittenberg, where on the previous sunday, the th, he had preached for the last time. he reached halle on the th, and stayed with jonas. it was probably then that he brought jonas as a present the beautiful white venetian glass, which is still preserved at nüremberg. the latin couplet is to this effect: luther this glass, himself a glass, doth on his friend bestow, that each himself a brittle glass may by this token know. [illustration: fig. .--jonas' glass. the date when the portraits of luther and jonas, together with the latin verses and their translation, were executed, is uncertain, (_a_) luther. (_bb_) translation of luther's verses. (_cc_) 'dat vitrum vitro jonæ vitrum ipse lutherus: ut vitro fragili similem se noscat uterque.' (_d_) jonas.] the breaking up of the ice, followed by heavy floods, detained him at halle for three days. the very day after his arrival he preached again. he wrote to his wife telling her he was cheering himself with good torgau beer and rhine-wine, till the saale had done raging. to his friends, however, in company he said, 'dear friends, we are mighty good comrades, we eat and drink together; but we must all die one day. i am now going to eisleben to help my masters, the counts of mansfeld, to come to terms. now i know how the people are disposed; when christ wished to reconcile his heavenly father with mankind, he undertook to die for them. god grant that it may be so with me!' on the th the travellers, who were joined by jonas, crossed the dangerous rapids formed by the narrow part of the river saale below the castle of giebichenstein, near the town, and thus on the same day reached eisleben, where the counts of mansfeld, with several other nobles, were waiting for luther. an escort of more than a hundred horsemen in heavy armour accompanied him from the frontier between the territories of halle and mansfeld. just before entering the town, however, he was seized with alarming giddiness and faintness, together with a sharp constriction of the heart, and much difficulty of breathing. he himself ascribed this to a chill, having shortly before walked some distance and then re-entered his carriage in a perspiration. at the village of rissdorf, near eisleben, so he wrote to his wife on february , such a bitter wind pierced his cap at the back of his head, that he felt as if his brain were freezing. it was in this letter that he spoke of her laughingly as lady zulsdorf, &c. 'but now,' he added, 'thank god, i am pretty well again, except for the heartache caused by the beautiful women.' only three days after this attack he preached at eisleben. luther was comfortably quartered at the drachstedt, a house which had been bought by the town-council, and was inhabited by the town-clerk albert. the business was commenced at once, in the very house where he was staying. but it was a work of much trouble and difficulty for luther. he sought one way after another to effect a reconciliation. on february he begged the elector through melancthon to send him a summons back to wittenberg, in order to put pressure on the counts to settle their dispute; and a few days after he wrote to his wife, saying that he should like to grease his carriage-wheels and be off in sheer anger, but concern for his native town prevented him. he was shocked at the avarice, so ruinous to the soul, which either party displayed. he was angry also with the lawyers, for backing up each party to stand so stubbornly on his imagined rights. he who now ought to have been a lawyer himself, came among them as a hobgoblin, who checked their pride by the grace of god. the multitude of jews whom luther met at eisleben and thereabouts were also an annoyance and vexation to him. he disliked to see the counts give room so far to men who blasphemed jesus and mary, who called the christians changelings, and sucked them dry, nay, would gladly kill them all, if they could. he warned even his congregation, as a child of their country, not to fall into their meshes. amidst all this business, he found time to preach four sermons. he partook twice of the sacrament, and confessed and ordained two clergymen. to his wife, who worried herself constantly about him and his health, he wrote from eisleben five times in fourteen days. his language to her, even when he has unpleasant news to tell, is always full of affection, heartiness, and comfort. the humorous way in which he addressed her we have noticed before. he told her how well he fares with eating and drinking. he referred her to her god, in whose stead she wished to care for him, to the bible and the small catechism, of which she had once declared that all it contained had been said by her. he had also dangers to tell her of, which had assailed him even while thus under her care. a fire chanced to break out in a chimney near his room; and on february , so he writes to her, notwithstanding all her care, a stone as long as a pillow and as thick as two hands, had nearly toppled down upon his head and crushed him. so he now takes care to say, 'while you cease not to care for us, the earth at length might swallow us up, and all the elements destroy us.' [footnote: a facsimile of the longest of these letters, bearing date february , appears at the end of the volume. it runs as follows: 'mercy and peace in the lord. pray read, dear katie, the gospel of st. john and the' [_marginally_ 'little'] 'catechism, of which you once declared that you yourself had said all that it contained. for you wish to disquiet yourself about your god, just as if he were not almighty, and able to create ten martin luthers for one old one drowned perhaps in the saale, or fallen dead by the fireplace, or on wolf's fowling-floor. leave me in peace with your cares; i have a better protector than you and all the angels. he--my protector--lies in the manger, and hangs upon a virgin's breast. but he sits also at the right hand of god, the father almighty. best, therefore--in peace. amen. 'i think that hell and all the world must now be free of all the devils who have come together here to eisleben, for my sake it seems. so hard and knotty is this business. there are fifty jews here too' [_marginally_ 'in one house'], 'as i wrote to you before. it is now said that at rissdorff, hard by eisleben, where i fell ill before my arrival, more than four hundred jews were walking and riding about. count albert, who owns all the country round eisleben, has seized them upon his property, and will have nothing to do with them. no one has done them any harm as yet. the widowed countess of mansfeld (the countess dorothea, widow of count ernest, born countess of solms), is thought to be the protectress of the jews. i don't know whether it is true, but i have given my opinion in quarters where i hope it will be attended to. it is a case of beg, beg, beg, and helping them. for i had it in my mind to-day to grease my carriage wheels _in irâ meâ_. but i felt the misery of it too much; my native home held me back. i have been made a lawyer, but they will not gain by it. they had better have let me remain a theologian. if i live and come among them, i might become a hobgoblin, who would comb down their pride by the grace of god. they behave as if they were god himself, but must take care to shake off these notions in good time before their godhead becomes a devilhead, as happened to lucifer, who could not remain in heaven for pride. well, god's will be done. let master philip see this letter, for i had no time to write to him; and you may comfort yourself with the thought how much i love you, as you know. and philip will understand it all. 'we live here very well, and the town-council gives me for each meal half a pint of "reinfall"' [_marginally_, 'which is very good']. 'sometimes i drink it with my friends. the wine of the country here is also good, and naumburg beer is very good, though i fancy its pitch fills my chest with phlegm. the devil has spoilt all the beer in the world with his pitch, and the wine with his brimstone. but here the wine is pure, such as the country gives. 'and know that all letters you have written have arrived, and to-day those have come which you wrote last friday, together with master philip's letters, so you need not be angry. sunday after st. dorothea's day ( february) . 'your loving 'martin luther, d.'] [illustration: fig. .--address of luther's letter of february . (' to my beloved housewife, catharine lady luther, lady doctor, lady of the pigmarket at wittenberg; my gracious wife, bound hand and foot in loving service.')] luther kept up also at eisleben his correspondence with melancthon. he wrote to him three letters, the last testimony of his friendship. a letter to his 'kind, dear housewife,' and one to melancthon, his 'most worthy brother in christ,' both of february , are without doubt the last he ever wrote. his sick body was well nursed and tended at eisleben. he went to bed early every night, after he had stood before his window, according to his old habit, in fervent prayer. the stone no longer troubled him, but he was very weary and worn. his last sermon, on sunday, february , he broke off with the words: 'this and much more is to be said about the gospel; but i am too weak, we will leave off here.' most unfortunately for him, he had omitted to bring with him to eisleben the applications used for keeping his issue open, and now it was nearly closed. he knew that the physicians considered this extremely dangerous. at length his efforts to mediate between his masters the counts were crowned with success beyond all expectation. on february a reconciliation was effected upon the chief points, and the various members of the counts' families rejoiced, while the young lords and ladies made merry all together. 'therefore,' wrote luther to kathe, 'it must be seen that god is _exauditor precum_.' he sent her some trout as a thankoffering from countess albert. he wrote to her: 'we hope to return home this week, if god will.' on the th and th of that month the reconciliation upon all the points of dispute was formally concluded. the revenues of churches and schools were fixed upon, and the latter to this day owe a rich endowment to the arrangements there made. on the th luther says in his 'table talk': 'i will now no longer tarry, but set myself to go to wittenberg and there lay myself in a coffin and give the worms a fat doctor to feed upon.' on the morning of the th, however, the counts found themselves compelled, by luther's state of health, to entreat him not to exert himself any longer with their affairs; and so he only added his signature where required. to jonas and the counts' court-preacher cölius, who were staying, with him, he said he thought he should remain at eisleben, where he was born. before supper he complained of oppression of the chest, and had himself rubbed with warm cloths. this relieved him, and he left his little room, going down the staircase into the public room to join the party at supper. 'there is no pleasure,' he said, 'in being alone.' at supper he was merry with the rest, and talked with his usual energy on various subjects--now jocular or serious, now intellectual and pious. but no sooner had he returned to his chamber and finished his usual evening prayer than he again became anxious and troubled. after being rubbed again with warm cloths and having taken a medicine which count albert himself had brought him, he laid himself down about nine o'clock on a leathern sofa and slept gently for an hour and a half. on awakening, he arose, and with the words (spoken in latin) 'into thy hands i commend my spirit, for thou hast redeemed me, thou god of truth,' went to his bed in the adjoining room, where he again slept, breathing quietly, till one o'clock. he then awoke, called his servant, and begged him to heat the room, though it was quite warm already, and then exclaimed to jonas, 'o lord god, how ill i am! ah! i feel i shall remain here at eisleben, where i was born and baptized.' in this state of pain he arose, walked without assistance into the room which he had left a few hours before, again commending his soul to god; and then, after pacing once up and down the room, lay down once more on the sofa, complaining again of the oppression on his chest. his two sons, martin and paul, remained with him all night. they had spent most of the time at mansfeld with their relations there, but had now returned to their father (hans was still absent), and his servant and jonas. cölius also hastened to him, and the young theologian john aurifaber, a friend of the two counts who used to associate with luther together with jonas and cölius. the town-clerk was there, too, with his wife, also two physicians, and count albert and his wife, who busied herself zealously with nursing the sick man; and later on came a count of schwarzburg with his wife, who were staying on a visit with the count of mansfeld. the rubbing and application of warm clothes and the medicines were now of no avail to ease luther's anguish. he broke out into a sweat. his friends began to feel more happy about him, hoping that this would relieve him; but he replied, 'it is the cold sweat of death; i shall yield up my spirit.' then he began to give thanks aloud to god, who had revealed to him his son, whom he had confessed and loved, and whom the godless and the pope blasphemed and insulted. he cried aloud to god and to the lord jesus: 'take my poor soul into thy hands! although i must leave this body, i know that i shall be ever with thee.' he then spoke words of the bible, three times uttering the text of st. john iii: 'god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' after cölius had given him one more spoonful of medicine, he said again, 'i am going, and shall render up my spirit,' and three times rapidly in succession he said in latin, 'father, into thy hands i commend my spirit, for thou hast redeemed me, o lord god of truth.' from that time he remained quite still, and closed his eyes, without making any answer when spoken to by those around him, who were busy with restoratives. jonas and cölius, however, after his pulse had been rubbed with strengthening waters, said aloud in his ear: 'reverend father (_reverende pater), wilt thou stand by christ and the doctrine thou hast preached?' he uttered an audible 'yes.' he then turned upon his right side and fell asleep. he lay thus for nearly a quarter of an hour, when his feet and nose grew cold; he fetched one deep, even breath, and was gone. it was between two and three o'clock in the morning of february --a thursday. the body was laid in a white garment, first upon a bed, and then in a hastily-made leaden coffin. many hundreds, high and low, came to see it. the next morning the face was painted by an eisleben artist, and the morning after that by lucas fortenagel of helle. fortenagel's portrait is no doubt a foundation of all those which we find in several places under cranach's name, and which no doubt really came from cranach's studio. [illustration: fig. .--luther after death. (from a picture ascribed to cranach.)] the elector john frederick at once insisted that the mortal remains of luther should rest at wittenberg. the counts of mansfeld wished at least to pay them the last honours. after they had been brought, on the afternoon of the th, into the church of st. andrew, where a sermon was preached by jonas that day, and another by cölius on the following morning, a solemn procession started at noon on the th, with the coffin, for its destination. in front rode a troop of about fifty light-armed cavalry, with sons of both the counts, to accompany the body to its last resting-place. all the counts and countesses, with their guests, followed as far as the gates of eisleben, and among them was a prince of anhalt, the magistrates, the school-children, and the whole population of the surrounding country. [illustration: fig. .--cast of luther after death. (at halle.)] in all the villages on the road the bells tolled, and old and young flocked to join the procession. at halle the coffin was received with great solemnity, and placed for the night of the th in the principal church of the town. there a cast was taken in wax, which is preserved in the library of the church; the original features, however, having been altered by putting in the eyes and improving the shape of the mouth. to complete our picture of luther's outward appearance, we have in this cast the remarkably strong brow, which in cranach's portraits of luther often recedes out of all proportion in his upturned face. the two representations of luther when dead are of great value, deeply as it must be lamented that no more skilful hands than those of the painter of halle and the wax-modeller have had the privilege of working upon them. on the st the corpse was taken to kemberg, after being received at the frontier of the electorate by deputies from the elector. on the morning of the nd it reached wittenberg, where it was at once taken to the castle church in solemn procession through the whole length of the town. it was a long, sad procession. first went the nobles representing the elector, then the horsemen from mansfeld and their young counts, and immediately after the coffin the widow in a little carriage with some other gentlewomen. then followed luther's sons and his brother james, with other relatives from mansfeld; then the university, the members of the town council, and all the citizens of wittenberg. in the church bugenhagen preached a sermon, and melancthon, who, on the arrival of the sad news, had expressed his grief in a charge to the students, gave a latin oration as representative of the university. then, near the spot where the great reformer had once nailed up his theses, the body was lowered into the grave. throughout the whole evangelical church arose a cry of lamentation. luther was mourned as a prophet of germany--as an elijah who had overthrown the worship of idols and set up again the pure word of god. like elisha to elijah, so melancthon called out after him, 'alas! the chariot of israel and the horsemen thereof!' on the other hand, fanatical papists were not ashamed to insult his very deathbed with slanders and falsehoods; even a year before he died a silly, sensational story of his death was spread about by them. luther throughout his life and labours had never troubled himself much about the praise or the abuse of men. after the example of his great teacher st. paul, he went his way in honour and dishonour, through evil report and good report, along the road which he knew to be pointed out from above. the portrait of his life, plain and unadorned as it is presented to the present age, will at any rate testify to the worth of this great man, and thus do something towards that eternal end for which he was ready to sacrifice his life and, in the eyes of the world, his honour and his fame. luther and the reformation: the life-springs of our liberties. by joseph a. seiss, d.d., pastor of the church of the holy communion, philadelphia author of "a miracle in stone," "voices from babylon," etc. etc. [illustration: joseph a. seiss.] charles c. cook, nassau street, new york. copyright, , by porter & coates. preface. the first part of this book presents the studies of the author in preparing a memorial oration delivered in the city of new york, november , , on the four hundredth anniversary of the birth of martin luther. the second part presents his studies in a like preparation for certain discourses delivered in the city of philadelphia at the bi-centennial of the founding of the commonwealth of pennsylvania. there was no intention, in either case, to make a book, however small in size. but the utterances given on these occasions having been solicited for publication in permanent shape for common use, and the two parts being intimately related in the exhibition of the most vital springs of our religious and civil freedom, it has been concluded to print these studies entire and together in this form, in hope that the same may satisfy all such desires and serve to promote truth and righteousness. throughout the wide earth there has been an unexampled stir with regard to the life and work of the great reformer, and these presentations may help to show it no wild craze, but a just and rational recognition of god's wondrous providence in the constitution of our modern world. and to him who was, and who is, and who is to come, the god of all history and grace, be the praise, the honor, and the glory, world without end! thanksgiving day, . contents. luther and the reformation pp. - . human greatness, .--_the papacy_, .--efforts at reform, .--time of the reformation, .--frederick the wise, .--reuchlin, .--erasmus, .--ulric von hütten, .--ulrich zwingli, .--melanchthon, .--john calvin, .--luther the chosen instrument, .--his origin, .--early training, .--_nature of the reformation_, .--luther's spiritual training, .--development for his work, .--visit to rome, .--elected town-preacher, .--made a doctor, .--his various labors, .--collision with the hierarchy, .--the indulgence-traffic, .--tetzel's performances, .--luther on indulgences, .--sermon on indulgences, .--appeal to the bishops, .--_the ninety-five theses_, .--effect of the theses, .--tetzel's end, .--luther's growing influence, .--appeal to the pope, .--citation to rome, .--appears before cajetan, .--cajetan's failure, .--progress of events, .--_the leipsic disputation_, .--results of the debate, .--luther's excommunication, .--answer to the pope's bull, .--_the diet of worms_, .--doings of the romanists, .--luther summoned to the diet, .--luther at the diet, .--refuses to retract, .--his condemnation, .--carried to the wartburg, .--_translation of the bible_, .--his conservatism, .--growth of the reformation, .--_luther's catechisms_, .--protestants and war, .--_the confession of augsburg_, .--league of smalcald, .--luther's later years, .--_his personale_, .--his great qualities, .--his alleged coarseness, .--his marvelous achievements, .--his impress upon the world, .--his enemies and revilers, . the founding of pennsylvania, pp. - . i. the history and the men. beginning of colonization in america, .--movements in sweden, .--swedish proposals, .--was penn aware of these plans? .--the swedes in advance of penn, .--_the men of those times_, .--gustavus adolphus, .--axel oxenstiern, .--peter minuit, .--william penn, .--estimate of penn, .--penn and the indians, .--penn's work, .--the greatness of faith, . ii. the principles enthroned. man's religious nature, .--_our state the product of faith_, .--gustavus and the swedes, .--the feelings of william penn, .--_recognition of the divine being_, .--enactments on the subject, .--importance of this principle, .--_religious liberty_, .--persecution for opinion's sake, .--spirit of the founders of pennsylvania, .--constitutional provisions, .--_safeguards to true liberty_, .--laws on religion and morals, .--forms of government, .--_a republican state_, .--the last two hundred years, . luther and the reformation. a rare spectacle has been spreading itself before the face of heaven during these last months. millions of people, of many nations and languages, on both sides of the ocean, simultaneously engaged in celebrating the birth of a mere man, four hundred years after he was born, is an unwonted scene in our world. unprompted by any voice of authority, unconstrained by any command of power, we join in the wide-ranging demonstration. in the happy freedom which has come to us among the fruits of that man's labors we bring our humble chaplet to grace the memory of one whose worth and services there is scarce capacity to tell. human greatness. some men are colossal. their characters are so massive, and their position in history is so towering, that other men can hardly get high enough to take their measure. an overruling providence so endows and places them that they affect the world, turn its course into new channels, impart to it a new spirit, and leave their impress on all the ages after them. even humble individuals, without titles, crowns, or physical armaments, have wrought themselves into the very life of the race and built their memorials in the characteristics of epochs. history tells of a certain saul of tarsus, a lone and friendless man, stripped of all earthly possessions, forced into battle with a universe of enthroned superstition, encompassed by perils which threatened every hour to dissolve him, who, pressing his way over mountains of difficulty and through seas of suffering, and dying a martyr to his cause, gave to europe a living god and to the nations another and an everlasting king. we likewise read of a certain christopher columbus, brooding in lowly retirement upon the structure of the physical universe, ridiculed, frowned on by the learned, repulsed by court after court, yet launching out into the unknown seas to find an undiscovered hemisphere, and opening the way for persecuted liberty to cradle the grand empire of popular rule amid the golden hills of a new and independent continent. and in this category stands the name of martin luther. he was a poor, plain man, only a doctor of divinity, without place except as a teacher in a university, without power or authority except in the convictions and qualities of his own soul, and with no implements save his bible, tongue, and pen; but with him the ages divided and human history took a new departure. two pre-eminent revolutions have passed over europe since the beginning of the christian era. the one struck the rome and rule of emperors; the other struck the rome and rule of popes. the one brought the dark ages; the other ended them. the one overwhelmed the dominion of the cæsars; the other humiliated a more than imperial dominion reared in cæsar's place. alaric, rhadagaisus, genseric, and attila were the chief instruments and embodiment of the first; _martin luther_ was the chief instrument and embodiment of the second. the one wrought bloody desolation; the other brought blessed renovation, under which humanity has bloomed its happiest and its best. the papacy. since phocas decreed the bishop of rome the supreme head of the church on earth there had grown up strange power which claimed to decide beyond appeal respecting everybody and everything--from affairs of empire to the burial of the dead, from the thoughts of men here to the estate of their souls hereafter--and to command the anathemas of god upon any who dared to question its authority. it held itself divinely ordained to give crowns and to take them away. kings and potentates were its vassals, and nations had to defer to it and serve it, on pain of _interdicts_ which smote whole realms with gloom and desolation, prostrated all the industries of life, locked up the very graveyards against decent sepulture, and consigned peoples and generations to an irresistible damnation. it was omnipresent and omnipotent in civilized europe. its clergy and orders swarmed in every place, all sworn to guard it at every point on peril of their souls, and themselves held sacred in person and retreat from all reach of law for any crime save lack of fealty to the great autocracy.[ ] the money, the armies, the lands, the legislatures, the judges, the executives, the police, the schools, with the whole ecclesiastical administration, reaching even to the most private affairs of life, were under its control. and at its centre sat its absolute dictator, unanswerable and supreme, the alleged vicar of god on earth, for whom to err was deemed impossible. think of a power which could force king henry iv., the heir of a long line of emperors, to strip himself of every mark of his station, put on the linen dress of a penitent, walk barefooted through the winter's snow to the pope's castle at canossa, and there to wait three days at its gates, unbefriended, unfed, and half perishing with cold and hunger, till all but the alleged vicar of jesus christ were moved with pity for his miseries as he stood imploring the tardy clemency of hildebrand, which was almost as humiliating in its bestowal as in its reservation. think of a power which could force the english king, henry ii., to walk three miles of a flinty road, with bare and bleeding feet, to canterbury, to be flogged from one end of the church to the other by the beastly monks, and then forced to spend the whole night in supplications to the spirit of an obstinate, perjured, and defiant archbishop, whom four of his over-zealous knights, without his orders, had murdered, and whose inner garments, when he was stripped to receive his shroud, were found alive with vermin! think of a power which, in defiance of the sealed safe-conduct of the empire, could seize john huss, one of the worthiest and most learned men of his time, and burn him alive in the presence of the emperor! think of a power which, by a single edict, caused the deliberate murder of more than fifty thousand men in the netherlands alone! footnotes: [ ] many assumed the clerical character for no other reason than that it might screen them from the punishment which their actions deserved, and the monasteries were full of people who entered them to be secure against the consequences of their crimes and atrocities.--rymer's _foedera_, vol. xiii. p. . efforts at reform. to restrain and humble this gigantic power was the desideratum of ages. for two hundred years had men been laboring to curb and tame it. from theologians and universities, from kings and emperors, from provinces and synods, from general councils, and even the college of cardinals--in every name of right, virtue, and religion--appeal after appeal and solemn effort after effort were made to reform the roman court and free the world from the terrible oppression. wars on wars were waged; provinces on provinces were deluged with blood; coalitions, bound by sacred oaths, were formed against the giant tyranny. and yet the hierarchy managed to maintain its assumptions and to overwhelm all remedial attempts. whether made by individuals or secular powers, by councils or governments, the result was the same. the pontificate still triumphed, with its claims unabridged, its dominion unbroken, its scandals uncured. a general council sat at constance to reform the clergy in head and members. it managed to rid itself of three popes between whom christendom was divided, when the emperor moved that the work of reform proceed. but the cardinals said, how can the church reform itself without a head? so they elected a pope who was to lead reform. yet a day had hardly passed before they found themselves in a traitor's power, who reaffirmed all the acts of the iniquitous john xxiii., who had just been deposed for his crimes, and presently endowed him with a cardinal's hat! when this pope, martin v., died, the cardinals thought to remedy their previous mistake. they would secure their reforms before electing a pope. so they erected themselves into a standing senate, without which no future pope could act. and they each took solemn oath, before god and all angels, by st. peter and all apostles, by the holy sacrament of christ's body and blood, and by all the powers that be, if elected, to conform to these arrangements and to use all the rights and prerogatives of the sublime position to put in force the reforms conceded to be necessary. but what are oaths and fore-pledges to candidates greedy for office? the tickets which elected the new pope had hardly been counted when he absolved himself from all previous obligations, disowned the senate of cardinals he had helped to erect, began his career with violence and robbery, plundered the cities and states of italy, religiously violated all compacts but those which favored his absolute supremacy, brought to none effect the reform council of basle, deceived germany with his specious and hollow concessions, averted the improvements he had sworn to make, and by his perfidy and cunning managed to retain in subordination to the old régime nearly the whole of that christendom which he had outraged! in spite of the efforts of centuries, this super-imperial power held by the throat a struggling world. to break that gnarled and bony hand, which locked up everything in its grasp; to bring down the towering altitude of that olden tyranny, whose head was lifted to the clouds; to strike from the soul its clanking chains and set the suffering nations free; to champion the inborn rights of afflicted humanity, and conquer the ignorance and imposture which had governed for a thousand years,--constituted the work and office of the man the four hundredth anniversary of whose birth half the civilized world is celebrating to-day. time of the reformation. it has been said that when this tonsured augustinian came upon the stage almost any brave man might have brought about the impending changes. the reformers before the reformation, though vanquished, had indeed not lived in vain. the european peoples were outgrowing feudal vassalage, and moving toward nationalization and separation between the secular and ecclesiastical powers. travel, exploration, and discovery had introduced new subjects of human interest and contemplation. schools of law, medicine, and liberal education were being established and largely attended. the common mind was losing faith in the professions and teachings of the old hierarchy. free inquiry was overturning the dominion of authority in matters of thought and opinion. the intellect of man was beginning to recover from the nightmare of centuries. a mightier power than the sword had sprung up in the art of printing. in a word, the world was gravid with a new era. but it was not so clear who would be able to bring it safely to the birth. there were living at the time many eminent men who might be thought of for this office had it not been assigned to luther. reuchlin, erasmus, hütten, sickingen, and others have been named, but the list might be extended, and yet no one be found endowed with the qualities to accomplish the work that was needed and that was accomplished. frederick the wise. the saxon elector, frederick the wise, was the worthiest, most popular, and most influential ruler then in europe. he could have been emperor in place of charles v. had he consented to be. the history of the world since his time might have been greatly different had he yielded to the general desire. his principles, his attainments, his wisdom, and his spirit were everything to commend him. he founded the university of wittenberg in hope that it would produce preachers who would leave off the cold subtleties of scholasticism and the uncertainties of tradition, and give discourses that would possess the nerve and power of the gospel of god. he sought out the best and most pious men for his advisers. he was the devoted friend of learning, truth, and virtue. by his prudence and foresight in church and state he helped the reformation more than any other man then in power. had it not been for him perhaps luther could not have succeeded. but it was not in the nature of things for the noble elector to give us such a reformation as that led by his humble subject. it is useless to speculate as to what the reformation might have become in his hands; but it certainly could never have become what we rejoice to know it was, while the probabilities are that we would now be fighting the battles which luther fought for us three and a half centuries ago. reuchlin. reuchlin was a learned and able man, and deeply conscious of the need of reform. when the greek argyrophylos heard him read and explain thucydides, he exclaimed, "greece has retired beyond the alps." he was the first hebrew scholar of germany, and served to restore the hebrew scriptures to the knowledge of the church. he held that popes could err and be deceived. he had no faith in human abnegations for reconciliation with god. he saw no need for hierarchical mediations, and discredited the doctrine of purgatory and masses for the dead. he bravely defended the cause of learning against the ignorant monks, whom he hated and held up to merciless ridicule. he was a brilliant and persuasive orator. he was an associate and counselor of kings. he gave melanchthon to the reformation, and did much to promote it. luther recognized in him a great light, of vast service to the gospel in germany. but reuchlin could never have accomplished the reformation. the vital principles of it were not sufficiently rooted in him. he was a humanist, whose sympathies went with the republic of letters, not with the wants of the soul and the needs of the people. when he got into trouble he appealed to the pope. and though he lived to see luther in agonizing conflict with the hierarchy of rome, he refrained from making common cause with him, and died in connection with the unreformed church, whose doctrines he had questioned and whose orders he had so unsparingly ridiculed. erasmus of rotterdam. erasmus was a notable man, great in talent and of great service in preparing the way for the reformation. he turned reviving learning to the study of the word. he produced the first, and for a long time the only, critical edition of the new testament in the original, to which he added a latin translation and notes. he paraphrased the epistle to the romans--that great epistle on which above all, the reformation moved. though once an inmate of a monastery, he abhorred the monks and exposed them with terrible severity. he had more friends, reputation, and influence than perhaps any other private man in europe. and he was deep in the spirit of opposition to the scandalous condition of things in the church. but he never could have given us the reformation. he said all honest men sided with luther, and as an honest man his place would have been by luther's side; but he was too great a coward. "if i should join luther," said he, "i could only perish with him, and i do not mean to run my neck into the halter. let popes and emperors settle matters."--"your holiness says, come to rome; you might as well tell a crab to fly. if i write calmly against luther, i shall be called lukewarm; if i write as he does, i shall stir up a hornet's nest.... send for the best and wisest men in christendom, and follow their advice."--"reduce the dogmas necessary to be believed to the smallest possible number. on other points let every one believe as he likes. having done this, quietly correct the abuses of which the world justly complains." so wrote erasmus to the pope and to the archbishop of mayence. such was his ideal of reformation--a thing as impossible to bring into practical effect as its realization would have been absurd. it is easy to tell a crab to fly, but will he do it? as well propose to convert infallibility with a fable of Æsop as to count on bringing regeneration to the hierarchy by such counsels. the waters were too deep and the storms too fierce for the vacillating erasmus. he did some excellent service in his way, but all his counsels and ideas failed, as they deserved. once the idol of europe, he died a defeated, crushed, and miserable man. "hercules could not fight two monsters at once," said he, "while i, poor wretch! have lions, cerberuses, cancers, scorpions, every day at my sword's point.... there is no rest for me in my age, unless i join luther; and that i cannot, for i cannot accept his doctrines. sometimes i am stung with desire to avenge my wrongs; but my heart says, will you in your spleen raise hand against your mother who begot you at the font? i cannot do it. yet, because i bade monks remember their vows; because i told persons to leave off their wranglings and read the bible; because i told popes and cardinals to look to the apostles and be more like them,--the theologians say i am their enemy." thus in sorrow and in clouds erasmus passed away, as would the entire reformation in his hands. ulric von hÜtten. ulric von hütten, soldier and knight, equally distinguished in letters and in arms, and called the demosthenes of germany, was a zealous friend of reform. he had been in rome, and sharpened his darts from what he there saw to hurl them with effect. all the powers of satire and ridicule he brought to bear upon the pillars of the papacy. he helped to shake the edifice, and his plans and spirit might have served to pull it down had he been able to bring europe to his mind; but it would only have been to bury society in its ruins. ulrich zwingli. ulrich zwingli is ranked among reformers, and he was energetic in behalf of reform. but he fell a victim to his own mistakes, and with him would have perished the reformation also had it depended upon him. even had he lived, his radical and rationalistic spirit, his narrow and fiery patriotism, his shallow religious experience, and his eagerness to rest the cause of reformation on civil authority and the sword, would have wrecked it with nine-tenths of the european peoples. melanchthon. philip melanchthon was a better and a greater man, and did the reformation a far superior service. luther would have been much disabled without him, and germany has awarded him the title of its "preceptor." but no reformation could have come if the fighting or directing of its battles had been left to him. even with the great luther ever by his side, he could hardly get loose from rome and retain his wholeness, and when he was loose could hardly maintain his legs upon the ground that had been won. calvin. john calvin was a man of great learning and ability. marked has been his influence on the theology and government of a large portion of the reformed churches. but the reformation was twelve years old before he came into it. it had to exist already ere there could be a calvin, while his repeated flights to avoid danger prove how inadequate his courage was for such unflinching duty as rendered luther illustrious. he was a cold, hard, ascetic aristocrat at best, more cynical, stern, and tyrannical than brave. the organization for the church and civil government which he gave to geneva was quite too intolerant and inquisitorial for safe adoption in general or to endure the test of the true gospel spirit. under a régime which burnt servetus for heresy, threw men into prison for reading novels, hung and beheaded children for improper behavior toward parents, whipped and banished people for singing songs, and dealt with others as public blasphemers if they said a word against the reformers or failed to go to church, the cause of the reformation could never have commanded acceptance by the nations, or have survived had it been received. the famous "blue laws" of the new england colonies have had to be given up as a scandal upon enlightened civilization; but they were largely transcribed from calvin's code and counsels, including even the punishing of witches. for the last two hundred years the calvinistic peoples have been reforming back from calvin's rules and spirit, either to a better foundation for the perpetuation and honor of the church or to a rationalistic skepticism which lets go all the distinctive elements of the genuine christian creed--the natural reaction from the hard and overstrained severity of a legalistic style of christianity. with all the great service calvin has rendered to theological science and church discipline, there was an unnatural sombreness about him, which linked him rather with the middle ages and the hierarchical rule than with the glad, free spirit of a wholesome christian life. at twenty-seven he had already drawn up a formula of doctrine and organization which he never changed and to which he ever held. there was no development either in his life or in his ideas. the evangelic elements of his system he found ready to his hand, as thought out by luther and the german theologians. they did not originate or grow with him. and had the reformation depended upon him it could never have become a success. so too with any others that might be named. luther the chosen instrument. we may not limit providence. the work was to be done. every interest of the world and of the kingdom of god demanded it. and if there had been no luther at hand, some one else would have been raised up to serve in his place. but there _was_ a luther, and, as far as human insight can determine, he was the only man on earth competent to achieve the reformation. and he it was who did achieve it. looked at in advance, perhaps no one would have thought of him for such an office. he was so humbly born, so lowly in station, so destitute of fortune, and withal so honest a papist, that not the slightest tokens presented to mark him out as the chosen instrument to grapple with the magnitudinous tyranny by which europe was enthralled. but "god hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty." moses was the son of a slave. the founder of the hebrew monarchy was a shepherd-boy. the redeemer-king of the world was born in a stable and reared in the family of a village carpenter. and we need not wonder that the hero-prophet of the modern ages was the son of a poor toiler for his daily bread, and compelled to sing upon the street for alms to keep body and soul together while struggling for an education. it has been the common order of providence that the greatest lights and benefactors of the race, the men who rose the highest above the level of their kind and stood as beacons to the world, were not such as would have been thought of in advance for the mighty services which render their names immortal. and that the master spirit of the great reformation was no exception all the more surely identifies that marvelous achievement as the work of an overruling god. luther's origin. luther was a saxon german--a german of the germans--born of that blood out of which, with but few exceptions, have sprung the ruling powers of the west since the last of the old roman emperors. he came out of the bosom of the freshest, strongest, and hardiest peoples then existing--the direct descendants of those wild cimbrian and teutonic tribes who, even in their heathenism, were the most virtuous, brave, and true of all the gentiles. nor was he the offspring of enfeebled, gouty, aristocratic blood. he was the son of the sinewy and sturdy yeomanry. though tradition reports one of his remote ancestors in something of imperial place among the chieftains of the semi-savage tribes from which he was descended, when the period of the reformation came his family was in like condition with that of the house of david when the christ was born. his father and grandfather and great-grandfather, he says himself, were true thuringian peasants. luther's early training. in the early periods of the mediæval church her missionaries came to these fiery warriors of the north and followed the conquests of charlemagne, to teach them that they had souls, that there is a living and all-knowing god at whose judgment-bar all must one day stand to give account, and that it would then be well with the believing, brave, honest, true, and good, and ill with cowards, profligates, and liars. it was a simple creed, but it took fast hold on the germanic heart, to show itself in sturdy power in the long after years. this creed, in unabated force, descended to luther's parents, and lived and wrought in them as a controlling principle. they were also strict to render it the same in their children. _hans luther_ was a hard and stern disciplinarian, unsparing in the enforcement of every virtue. _margaret luther_[ ] was noted among her neighbors as a model woman, and was so earnest in her inculcations of right that she preferred to see her son bleed beneath the rod rather than that he should do a questionable thing even respecting so small a matter as a nut. from his childhood luther was thus trained and attempered to fear god, reverence truth and honesty, and hate hypocrisy and lies. possibly his parents were severer with him than was necessary, but it was well for him, as the prospective prophet of a new era, to learn absolute obedience to those who were to him the representatives of that divine authority which he was to teach the world supremely to obey. but no birth, or blood, or parental drilling, or any mere human culture, could give the qualities necessary to a successful reformer. the church had fallen into all manner of evils, because it had drifted away from the apostolic doctrine as to how a man shall be just with god; which is the all-conditioning question of all right religion. there could then be no cure for those evils except by the bringing of the church back to that doctrine. but to do anything effectual toward such a recovery it was pre-eminently required that the reformer himself should first be brought to an experimental knowledge of what was to be witnessed and taught. on two different theatres, therefore, the reformation had to be wrought out: first, in the reformer's own soul, and then on the field of the world outside of him. footnotes: [ ] the maiden name of margaret luther, the mother of martin, was _margaret ziegler_. there has been a traditional belief that her name was margaret lindeman. the mistake originated in confounding luther's grandmother, whose name was _lindeman_, with luther's mother, whose name was _ziegler_. prof. julius köstlin, in his _life of luther_, after a thorough examination of original records and documents, gives this explanation. what the reformation was. it is hard to take in the depth and magnitude of what is called the great reformation. it stands out in history like a range of himalayan mountains, whose roots reach down into the heart of the world and whose summits pierce beyond the clouds. to bossuet and voltaire it was a mere squabble of the monks; to others it was the cupidity of secular sovereigns and lay nobility grasping for the power, estates, and riches of the church. some treat of it as a simple reaction against religious scandals, with no great depths of principle or meaning except to illustrate the recuperative power of human society to cure itself of oppressive ills. guizot describes it as "a vast effort of the human mind to achieve its freedom--a great endeavor to emancipate human reason." lord bacon takes it as the reawakening of antiquity and the recall of former times to reshape and fashion our own. whatever of truth some of these estimates may contain, they fall far short of a correct idea of what the reformation was, or wherein lay the vital spring of that wondrous revolution. its historic and philosophic centre was vastly deeper and more potent than either or all of these conceptions would make it. many influences contributed to its accomplishment, but its inmost principle was unique. the real nerve of the reformation was religious. its life was something different from mere earthly interests, utilities, aims, or passions. _its seat was in the conscience._ its true spring was the soul, confronted by eternal judgment, trembling for its estate before divine almightiness, and, on pain of banishment from every immortal good, forced to condition and dispose itself according to the clear revelations of god. it was not mere negation to an oppressive hierarchy, except as it was first positive and evangelic touching the direct and indefeasible relations and obligations of the soul to its maker. only when the hierarchy claimed to qualify these direct relations and obligations, thrust itself between the soul and its redeemer, and by eternal penalties sought to hold the conscience bound to human authorities and traditions, did the reformation protest and take issue. had the inalienable right and duty to obey god rather than man been conceded, the hierarchy, as such, might have remained, the same as monarchical government. but this the hierarchy negatived, condemned, and would by no means tolerate. hence the mighty contest. and the heart, sum, and essence of the whole struggle was the maintenance and the working out into living fact of this direct obligation of the soul to god and the supreme authority of his clear and unadulterated word. spiritual training. how luther came to these principles, and the fiery trials by which they were burnt into him as part of his inmost self, is one of the most vital chapters in the history. his father had designed him for the law. to this end he had gone through the best schools of germany, taken his master's degree, and was advancing in the particular studies relating to his intended profession, when a sudden change came over his life. religious in his temper and training, and educated in a creed which worked mainly on man's fears, without emphasizing the only basis of spiritual peace, he fell into great terrors of conscience. several occurrences contributed to this: ( ) he fell sick, and was likely to die. ( ) he accidentally severed an artery, and came near bleeding to death. ( ) a bosom friend of his was suddenly killed. all this made him think how it would be with him if called to stand before god in judgment, and filled him with alarm. then ( ) he was one day overtaken by a thunderstorm of unwonted violence. the terrific scene presented to his vivid fancy all the horrors of a mediæval picture of the last day, and himself about to be plunged into eternal fire. overwhelmed with terror, he cried to heaven for help, and vowed, if spared, to devote himself to the salvation of his soul by becoming a monk. his father hated monkery, and he shared the feeling; but, if it would save him, why hesitate? what was a father's displeasure or the loss of all the favors of the world to his safety against a hopeless perdition? call it superstition, call it religious melancholy, call it morbid hallucination, it was a most serious matter to the young luther, and out of it ultimately grew the reformation. false ideas underlay the resolve, but it was profoundly sincere and according to the ideas of ages. it was wrong, but he could not correct the error until he had tested it. and thus, by what he took as the unmistakable call of god, he entered the cloister. never man went into a monastery with purer motives. never a man went through the duties, drudgeries, and humiliations of the novitiate of convent-life with more unshrinking fidelity. never man endured more painful mental and bodily agonies that he might secure for himself an assured spiritual peace. romanists have expressed their wonder that so pure a man thought himself so great a sinner. but a sinner he was, as we all; and to avert the just anger of god he fasted, prayed, and mortified himself like an anchorite of the thebaid. and yet no peace or comfort came. a chained bible lay in the monastery. he had previously found a copy of it in the library of the university. day and night he read it, along with the writings of st. augustine. in both he found the same pictures of man's depravity which he realized in himself, but god's remedy for sin he had not found. in the earnestness of his studies the prescribed devotions were betimes crowded out, and then he punished himself without mercy to redeem his failures. whole nights and days together he lay upon his face crying to god, till he swooned in his agony. everything his brother-monks could tell him he tried, but all the resources of their religion were powerless to comfort him or to beget a righteousness in which his anguished soul could trust. it happened that one of the exceptionally enlightened and spiritual-minded monks of his time, _john staupitz_, was then the vicar-general of the augustinians in saxony. on his tour of inspection he came to erfurt, and there found luther, a walking skeleton, more dead than alive. he was specially drawn to the haggard young brother. the genial and sympathizing spirit of the vicar-general made luther feel at home in his presence, and to him he freely opened his whole heart, telling of his feelings, failures, and fears--his heartaches, his endeavors, his disappointments, and his despair. and god put the right words into the vicar-general's mouth. "look to the wounds of jesus," said he, "and to the blood he shed for you, and there see the mercy of god. cast yourself into the redeemer's arms, and trust in his righteous life and sacrificial death. he loved you first; love him in return, and let your penances and mortifications go." the oppressed and captive spirit began to feel its burden lighten under such discourse. god a god of love! piety a life of love! salvation by loving trust in a god already reconciled in christ! this was a new revelation. it brought the sorrowing young luther to the study of the scriptures with a new object of search. he read and meditated, and began to see the truth of what his vicar said. but doubts would come, and often his gloom returned. one day an aged monk came to his cell to comfort him. he said he only knew his creed, but in that he rested, reciting, "_i believe in the forgiveness of sins_."--"and do i not believe that?" said luther.--"ah," said the old monk, "you believe in the forgiveness of sins for david and peter and the thief on the cross, but you do not believe in the forgiveness of sins _for yourself_. st. bernard says the holy ghost speaks it to your own soul, _thy_ sins are forgiven _thee_." and so at last the right nerve was touched. the true word of god's deliverance was brought home to luther's understanding. he was penitent and in earnest, and needed only this great gospel hope to lift him from the horrible pit and the miry clay. as a light from heaven it came to his soul, and there remained, a comfort and a joy. the glad conclusion flashed upon him, never more to be shaken, "if god, for christ's sake, takes away our sins, then they are not taken away by any works of ours." the foundation-rock of a new world was reached. luther saw not yet what all this discovery meant, nor whither it would lead. he was as innocent of all thought of being a reformer as a new-born babe is of commanding an army on the battlefield. but the gospel principle of deliverance and salvation for his oppressed and anxious soul was found, and it was found for all the world. the anchor had taken hold on a new continent. in essence the great reformation was born--born in luther's soul. luther's development. more than ten years passed before this new principle began to work off the putrid carcass of mediæval religion which lay stretched over the stifled and suffocating church of christ. there were yet many steps and stages in the preparation for what was to come. but from that time forward everything moved toward general regeneration by means of that marrow doctrine of the gospel: _salvation by loving faith in the merit and mediation of jesus alone_. staupitz counseled the young monk to study the scriptures well and whatever could aid him in their right understanding, and gave orders to the monastery not to interfere with his studies. on may , , he was consecrated to the priesthood. within the year following, at the instance of staupitz, frederick the wise appointed him professor in the new university of wittenberg. may , , he took his degree of bachelor of divinity. from that time he began to use his place to attack the falsehoods of the prevailing philosophy and to explore and expose the absurdities of scholasticism, dwelling much on the great gospel treasure of god's free amnesty to sinful man through the merits and mediation of jesus christ, on which his own soul was planted. staupitz was astounded at the young brother's thorough mastery of the sacred word, the minuteness of his knowledge of it, and the power with which he expounded and defended the great principles of the evangelic faith. so able a teacher of the doctrines of the cross must at once begin to preach. luther remonstrated, for it was not then the custom for all priests to preach. he insisted that he would die under the weight of such responsibilities. "die, then," said staupitz; "god has plenty to do for intelligent young men in heaven." a little old wooden chapel, daubed with clay, twenty by thirty feet in size, with a crude platform of rough boards at one end and a small sooty gallery for scarce twenty persons at the other, and propped on all sides to keep it from tumbling down, was assigned him as his cathedral. myconius likens it to the stable of bethlehem, as there christ was born anew for the souls which now crowded to it. and when the thronging audiences required his transfer to the parish church, it was called the bringing of christ into the temple. the fame of this young theologian and preacher spread fast and far. the common people and the learned were alike impressed by his originality and power, and rejoiced in the electrifying clearness of his expositions and teachings. the elector was delighted, for he began to see his devout wishes realized. staupitz, who had drunk in the more pious spirit of the mystic theologians, shared the same feeling, and saw in luther's fresh, biblical, and energetic preaching what he felt the whole church needed. "he spared neither counsel nor applause," for he believed him the man of god for the times. he sent him to neighboring monasteries to preach to the monks. he gave him every opportunity to study, observe, and exercise his great talents. he even sent him on a mission to rome, more to acquaint him with that city, which he longed to see, than for any difficult or pressing business with the pope. luther's visit to rome. luther performed the journey on foot, passing from monastery to monastery, noting the extravagances, indolence, gluttony, and infidelity of the monks, and sometimes in danger of his life, both from the changes of climate and from the murderous resentments of some of these cloister-saints which his rebukes of their vices engendered. when rome first broke upon his sight, he hailed it reverently as the city of saints and holy martyrs. he almost envied those whose parents were dead, and who had it in their power to offer prayers for the repose of their souls by the side of such holy shrines. but when he beheld the vulgarities, profanities, paganism, and unconcealed unbelief which pervaded even the ecclesiastical circles of that city, his soul sunk within him. there was much to be seen in rome; and the roman catholic writers find great fault with luther for being so dull and unappreciative as to move amid it without being touched with a single spark of poetic fire. they tell of the glory of the cardinals, in litters, on horseback, in glittering carriages, blazing with jewels and shaded with gorgeous canopies; of marble palaces, grand walks, alabaster columns, gigantic obelisks, villas, gardens, grottoes, flowers, fountains, cascades; of churches adorned with polished pillars, gilded soffits, mosaic floors, altars sparkling with diamonds, and gorgeous pictures from master-hands looking down from every wall; of monuments, statues, images, and holy relics; and they blame luther that he could gaze upon it all without a stir of admiration--that he could look upon the sculpture and statuary and see nothing but pagan devices, the gods demosthenes and praxiteles, the feasts and pomps of delos, and the idle scenes of the heathen forum--that no gleam from the crown of perugino or michael angelo dazzled his eyes, and no strain of virgil or of dante, which the people sung in the streets, attracted his ear--that he was only cold and dumb before all the treasures and glories of art and all the grandeur of the high dignitaries of the church, seeing nothing, feeling nothing, exclaiming over nothing but the licentious impurities of the priests, the pagan pomps of the pontiff, the profane jests of the ministers of religion, the bare shoulders of the roman ladies. luther was not dead to the æsthetic, but to see faith and righteousness thus smothered and buried under a godless epicurean life was an offence to his honest german conscience. it looked to him as if the popes had reversed the saviour's choice, and accepted the devil's bid for christ to worship him. from what his own eyes and ears had now seen and heard, he knew what to believe concerning the state of things in the metropolis of christendom, and was satisfied that, as surely as there is a hell, the rome of those days was its mouth.[ ] footnotes: [ ] bellarmine, an honored author of the roman church, one competent to judge concerning the state of things at that time, and not over-forward to confess it, says: "for some years before the lutheran and calvinistic heresies were published there was not (as contemporary authors testify) any rigor in ecclesiastical judicatories, any discipline with regard to morals, any knowledge of sacred literature, any reverence for divine things: there was almost no religion remaining."--_bellarm._, concio xviii., opera, tom. vi. col. , edit. colon., , apud _gerdesii hist. evan. renovati_, vol. i. p. . luther as town-preacher. on his return the senate of wittenberg elected him town-preacher. in the cloister, in the castle chapel, and in the collegiate church he alternately exercised his gifts. romanists admit that "his success was great. he said he would not imitate his predecessors, and he kept his word. for the first time a christian preacher was seen to abandon the schoolmen and draw his texts and illustrations from the writings of inspiration. he was the originator and restorer of expository preaching in modern times." the elector heard him, and was filled with admiration. an old professor, whom the people called "the light of the world," listened to him, and was struck with his wonderful insight, his marvelous imagination, and his massive solidity. and wittenberg sprang into great renown because of him, for never before had been heard in saxony such a luminous expositor of god's holy word. luther made a doctor. on all hands it was agreed and insisted that he should be made a doctor of divinity. the costs were heavy, for simony was the order of the day and the pope exacted high prices for all church promotions; but the elector paid the charges. on the th of october, , the degree was conferred. it was no empty title to luther. it gave him liberties and rights which his enemies could not gainsay, and it laid on him obligations and duties which he never forgot. the obedience to the canons and the hierarchy which it exacted he afterward found inimical to christ and the gospel, and, as in duty bound, he threw it off, with other swaddling-bands of popery. but there was in it the pledge "to devote his whole life to the study, exposition and defence of the holy scriptures." this he accepted, and ever referred to as his sacred charter and commission. nor was it without significance that the great bell of wittenberg was rung when proclamation of this investiture was made. as the ringing of the bell on the old state-house when the declaration of independence was passed proclaimed the coming liberties of the american colonies, so this sounding of the great bell of wittenberg when luther was made doctor of divinity proclaimed and heralded to the nations of the earth the coming deliverance of the enslaved church. god's chosen servant had received his commission, and the better day was soon to dawn. * * * * * henceforth luther's labors and studies went forward with a new impulse and inspiration. hebrew and greek were thoroughly mastered. the fathers of the church, ancient and modern, were carefully read. the systems of the schoolmen, the book of sentences, the commentaries, the decretals--everything relating to his department as a doctor of theology--were examined, and brought to the test of holy scripture. in his sermons, lectures, and disquisitions the results of these incessant studies came out with a depth of penetration, a clearness of statement, a simplicity of utterance, a devoutness of spirit, and a convincing power of eloquence which, with the eminent sanctity of his life, won for him unbounded praise. the common feeling was that the earth did not contain another such a doctor and had not seen his equal for many ages. envy and jealousy themselves, those green-eyed monsters which gather about the paths of great qualities and successes, seemed for the time to be paralyzed before a brilliancy which rested on such humility, conscientiousness, fidelity, and merit. luther's labors. years of fruitful labor passed. the decalogue was expounded. paul's letter to the romans and the penitential psalms were explained. the lectures on the epistle to the galatians were nearly completed. but no book from luther had yet been published. in he was chosen district vicar of the augustinian monasteries of meissen and thuringia. it was a laborious office, but it gave him new experiences, familiarized him still more with the monks, brought him into executive administrations, and developed his tact in dealing with men. one other particular served greatly to establish him in the hearts of the people. a deadly plague broke out in wittenberg. citizens were dying by dozens and scores. at a later period a like scourge visited geneva, and so terrified calvin and his ministerial associates that they appealed to the supreme council, entreating, "mighty lords, release us from attending these infected people, for our lives are in peril." not so luther. his friends said, "fly! fly!" lest he should fall by the plague and be lost to the world. "fly?" said he. "no, no, my god. if i die, i die. the world will not perish because a monk has fallen. i am not st. paul, not to fear death, but god will sustain me." and as an angel of mercy he remained, ministering to the sick and dying and caring for the orphans and widows of the dead. collision with the hierarchy. such was luther up to the time of his rupture with rome. he knew something of the shams and falsities that prevailed, and he had assailed and exposed many of them in his lectures and sermons; but to lead a general reformation was the farthest from his thoughts. indeed, he still had such confidence in the integrity of the roman church that he did not yet realize how greatly a thorough general reformation was needed. humble in mind, peaceable in disposition, reverent toward authority, loving privacy, and fully occupied with his daily studies and duties, it was not in him to think of making war with powers whose claims he had not yet learned to question. but it was not possible that so brave, honest, and self-sacrificing a man should long pursue his convictions without coming into collision with the roman high priesthood. though far off at wittenberg, and trying to do his own duty well in his own legitimate sphere, it soon came athwart his path in a form so foul and offensive that it forced him to assault it. either he had to let go his sincerest convictions and dearest hopes or protest had to come. his personal salvation and that of his flock were at stake, and he could in no way remain a true man and not remonstrate. driven to this extremity, and struck at for his honest faithfulness, he struck again; and so came the battle which shook and revolutionized the world. the selling of indulgences. luther's first encounter with the hierarchy was on the traffic in indulgences. it was a good fortune that it there began. that traffic was so obnoxious to every sense of propriety that any vigorous attack upon it would command the approval of many honest and pious people. the central heresy of hierarchical religion was likewise embodied in it, so that a stab there, if logically followed up, would necessarily reach the very heart of the oppressive monster. and providence arranged that there the conflict should begin. leo x. had but recently ascended the papal throne. reared amid lavish wealth and culture, he was eager that his reign should equal that of solomon and the cæsars. he sought to aggrandize his relatives, to honor and enrich men of genius, and to surround himself with costly splendors and pleasures. these demanded extraordinary revenues. the projects of his ambitious predecessors had depleted the papal coffers. he needed to do something on a grand scale in order adequately to replenish his exchequer. as early as the eleventh century the popes had betimes resorted to the selling of pardons and the issuing of free passes to heaven on consideration of certain services or payments to the church. from urban ii. to leo x. this was more or less in vogue--first, to get soldiers for the holy wars,[ ] and then as a means of wealth to the church. if one wished to eat meat on fast-days, marry within prohibited degrees of relationship, or indulge in forbidden pleasures, he could do it without offence by rendering certain satisfactions before or after, which satisfactions could mostly be made by payments of money.[ ] in the same way he could buy remission of sins in general, or exemption for so many days, years, or centuries from the pains of purgatory. bulls of authority were given, in the name of the father, son, and holy ghost, to issue certificates of exemption from all penalties to such as did the service or paid the equivalent. immense incomes were thus realized. even to the present this facile invention for raising money has not been entirely discontinued. papal indulgences can be bought to-day in the shops of spain and elsewhere. leo seized upon this system with all the vigor and unscrupulousness characteristic of the medici. had he been asked whether he really believed in these pardons, he would have said that the church always believed the pope had power to grant them. had he spoken his real mind in the matter, he would have said that if the people chose to be such fools, it was not for him to find fault with them. and thus, under plea of raising funds to finish st. peter's, he instituted a grand trade in indulgences, and thereby laid the capstone of hierarchical iniquity which crushed the whole fabric to its base. the right to sell these wares in germany was awarded to albert, the gay young prince-archbishop of mayence. he was over head and ears in debt to the pope for his pallium, and leo gave him this chance to get out.[ ] half the proceeds of the trade in his territory were to go to his credit. but the work of proclaiming and distributing the pardons was committed to _john tetzel_, a dominican prior who had long experience in the business, and who achieved "a forlorn notoriety in european history" by his zeal in prosecuting it. footnotes: [ ] in the famous bull of gregory ix., published in , that pope exhorts and commands all good christians to take up the cross and join the expedition to recover the holy land. the language is: "the service to which mankind are now invited is an effectual atonement for the miscarriages of a negligent life. the discipline of a regular penance would have discouraged many offenders so much that they would have had no heart to venture upon it; but the holy war is a compendious method of discharging men from guilt and restoring them to the divine favor. even if they die on their march, the intention will be taken for the deed, and many in this way may be crowned without fighting."--given in collier's _eccl._, vol. i. [ ] the roman chancery once put forth a book, which went through many editions, giving the exact prices for the pardon of each particular sin. a deacon guilty of murder was absolved for twenty pounds. a bishop or abbot might assassinate for three hundred livres. any ecclesiastic might violate his vows of chastity for the third part of that sum, etc., etc.--see robertson's _charles v._ [ ] the pallium, or pall, was a narrow band of white wool to go over the shoulders in the form of a circle, from which hung bands of similar size before and behind, finished at the ends with pieces of sheet lead and embroidered with crosses. it was the mark of the dignity and rank of archbishops. albert owed pope leo x. forty-five thousand thalers for his right and appointment to wear the archbishop's pallium. it was in this way that the roman church was accustomed to sell out benefices as a divine right. even _expectative graces_, or mandates nominating a person to succeed to a benefice upon the first vacancy, were thus sold. companies existed in germany which made a business of buying up the benefices of particular sections and districts and retailing them at advanced rates. the selling of pardons was simply a lower kind of simoniacal bartering which pervaded the whole hierarchical establishment. tetzel's performances. tetzel entered the towns with noise and pomp, amid waving of flags, singing, and the ringing of bells. clergy, choristers, monks, and nuns moved in procession before and after him. he himself sat in a gilded chariot, with the bull of his authority spread out on a velvet cushion before him. the churches were his salesrooms, lighted and decorated for the occasion as in highest festival. from the pulpits his boisterous oratory rang, telling the virtues of indulgences, the wonderful power of the keys, and the unexampled grace of which he was the bearer from the holy lord and father at rome. he called on all--robbers, adulterers, murderers, everybody--to draw near, pay down their money, and receive from him letters, duly sealed, by which all their sins, past and future, should be pardoned and done away. not for the living only, but also for the dead, he proposed full and instantaneous deliverance from all future punishments on the payment of the price. and any wretch who dared to doubt or question the saving power of these certificates he in advance doomed to excommunication and the wrath of god.[ ] catholic divines have labored hard to whitewash or explain away this stupendous iniquity; but, with all they have said or may say, such were the presentations made by the hawkers of these wares and such was the text of the diplomas they issued. a dispensation or indulgence was nothing more nor less than a pretended letter of credit on heaven, drawn at will by the pope out of the superabundant merits of christ and all saints, to count so much on the books of god for so many murders, robberies, frauds, lies, slanders, or debaucheries. as the matter practically worked, a more profane and devilish traffic never had place in our world than that which the roman hierarchy thus carried on in the name of the triune god. footnotes: [ ] many of the sayings which tetzel gave out in his addresses to the people have been preserved, and are amply attested by those who listened to his harangues. "i would not," said he, "exchange my privileges for those of st. peter in heaven. he saved many by his sermons; i have saved more by my indulgences." "indulgences are the most precious and sublime of all the gifts of god." "no sins are so great that these pardons cannot cover them." "not for the living only, but for the dead also, there is immediate salvation in these indulgences." "ye priests, nobles, tradespeople, wives, maidens, young men! the souls of your parents and beloved ones are crying from the depths below: 'see our torments! a small alms would deliver us; and you can give it, and you will not.'" "o dull and brutish people, not to appreciate the grace so richly offered! this day heaven is open on all sides, and how many are the souls you might redeem if you only would! your father is in flames, and you can deliver him for ten groschen, and you do it not! what punishment must come for neglecting so great salvation! you should strip your coat from your back, if you have no other, and sell it to purchase so great grace as this, for god hath given all power to the pope." "the bodies of st. peter and st. paul, with those of many blessed martyrs, lie exposed, trampled on, polluted, dishonored, and rotting in the weather. our most holy lord the pope means to build the church to cover them with glory that shall have no equal on the earth. shall those holy ashes be left to be trodden in the mire?" "therefore bring your money, and do a work most profitable to departed souls. buy! buy!" "this red cross with the pope's arms has equal virtue with the cross of christ." "these pardons make cleaner than baptism, and purer than adam was in his innocence in paradise." in the certificates which tetzel gave to those who bought these pardons he declared that "by the authority of jesus christ, and of his apostles peter and paul, and of the most holy pope, i do absolve thee first from all ecclesiastical censures, in whatever manner they have been incurred, and then _from all thy sins, transgressions, and excesses, however enormous soever they may be_. i remit to you all punishment which you deserve in purgatory on their account, and i restore you to the holy sacraments of the church, union with the faithful, and to that innocence and purity possessed at baptism; _so that when you die the gates of punishment shall be shut and the gates of the happy paradise shall be opened; and if your death shall be delayed, this grace shall remain in full force when you are at the point of death_." the sums required for these passports to glory varied according to the rank and wealth of the applicant. for ordinary indulgence a king, queen, or bishop was to pay twenty-five ducats (a ducat being about a dollar of our money); abbots, counts, barons, and the like were charged ten ducats; other nobles and all who enjoyed annual incomes of five hundred florins were charged six ducats; and so down to half a florin, or twenty-five cents. but the commissioner also had a special scale for taxes on particular sins. sodomy was charged twelve ducats; sacrilege and perjury, nine; murder, seven or eight; witchcraft and polygamy, from two to six; taking the life of a parent, brother, sister, or an infant, from one to six. luther on indulgences. luther was on a tour of inspection as district vicar of the augustinians when he first heard of these shameful doings. as yet he understood but little of the system, and could not believe it possible that the fathers at rome could countenance, much less appoint and commission, such iniquities. boiling with indignation for the honor of the church, he threatened to make a hole in tetzel's drum, and wrote to the authorities to refuse passports to the hucksters of these shameful deceptions. but tetzel soon came near to wittenberg. some of luther's parishioners heard him, and bought absolutions. they afterward came to confession, acknowledging great irregularities of life. luther rebuked their wickedness, and would not promise them forgiveness unless contrite for their sins and earnestly endeavoring to amend their evil ways. they remonstrated, and brought out their certificates of plenary pardon. "i have nothing to do with your papers," said he. "god's word says you must repent and lead better lives, or you will perish." his words were at once carried to the ears of tetzel, who fumed with rage at such impudence toward the authority of the church. he ascended the pulpit and hurled the curses of god upon the saxon monk. * * * * * thus an honest pastor finds some of his flock on the way to ruin, and tries to guide them right. he is not thinking of attacking rome. he is ready to fight and die for holy mother church. his very protests are in her behalf. he is on his own rightful field, in faithful pursuit of his own rightful duty. here the erring hierarchy seeks him out and attacks him. shall he yield to timid fears and weak advisers, keep silence in his own house, and let the souls he is placed to guard become a prey to the destroyer? is he not sworn to defend god's holy word and gospel? what will be his eternal fate and that of his people should he now hold his peace? sermon on indulgences. without conferring with flesh and blood his resolve was made--a resolve on which hung all the better future of the world--a resolve to take the pulpit against the lying indulgences. for several days he shut himself in his cell to make sure of his ground and to elaborate what he would say. with eminent modesty and moderation his sentences were wrought, but with a perspicuity and clearness which no one could mistake. a crowded church awaited their delivery. he entered with his brother-monks, and joined in all the service with his usual voice and gravity. nothing in his countenance or manner betrayed the slightest agitation of his soul. it was a solemn and momentous step for himself and for mankind that he was about to take, but he was as calmly made up to it as to any other duty of his life. the moment came for him to speak; _and he spoke_. "i hold it impossible," said he, "to prove from the holy scriptures that divine justice demands from the sinner any other penance or satisfaction than a true repentance, a change of heart, a willing submission to bear the saviour's cross, and a readiness to do what good he can. "that indulgences applied to souls in purgatory serve to remit the punishments which they would otherwise suffer is an opinion devoid of any foundation. "indulgences, so far from expiating or cleansing from sin, leave the man in the same filth and condemnation in which they find him. "the church exacts somewhat of the sinner, and what it on its own account exacts it can on its own account remit, but nothing more. "if you have aught to spare, in god's name give it for the building of st. peter's, but do not buy pardons. "if you have means, feed the hungry, which is of more avail than piling stones together, and far better than the buying of indulgences. "my advice is, let indulgences alone; leave them to dead and sleepy christians; but see to it that ye be not of that kind. "indulgences are neither commanded nor approved of god. they excite no one to sanctification. they work nothing toward salvation. "that indulgences have virtue to deliver souls from purgatory i do not believe, nor can it be proven by them that teach it; the church says nothing to that effect. "what i preach to you is based on the certainty of the holy scriptures, which no one ought to doubt." so luther preached, and his word went out to the ends of the earth. it was no jest, like ulric von hütten's _epistles of obscure men_, or like the ridicule which reuchlin and erasmus heaped upon the stupid monks. it raised no laugh, but penetrated, like a rifle-shot, into the very heart of things. those who listened were deeply affected by the serious boldness of the preacher. the audience was with him in conviction, but many trembled for the result. "dear doctor, you have been very rash; what trouble may come of this!" said a venerable father as he pulled the sleeve of luther's gown and shook his head with misgivings. "if this is not rightly done in god's name," said luther, "it will come to nothing; if it is, let come what will." it was honest duty to god, truth, and the salvation of men that moved him. cowardly policy or timid expediency in such a matter was totally foreign to his soul. in a few days, the substance of the sermon was in print. tetzel raved over it. melanchthon says he burnt it in the market-place of jüterbock. in the name of god and the pope he bade defiance to its author, and challenged him by fire and water. luther laughed at him for braying so loud at a distance, yet declining to come to wittenberg to argue out the matter in close lists. appeal to the bishops. anxious to vindicate the church from what he believed to be an unwarranted liberty in the use of her name, luther wrote to the bishop of brandenburg and the archbishop of mayence. he made his points, and appealed to these his superiors to put down the scandalous falsities advanced by tetzel. they failed to answer in any decisive way. the one timidly advised silence, and the other had too much pecuniary interest in the business to notice the letter. thus, as a pastor, luther had taken his ground before his parishioners in the confessional. as a preacher he had uttered himself in earnest admonition from the pulpit. as a loyal son he had made his presentation and appeal to those in authority over him. was he right? or was he wrong? no commanding answer came, and there remained one other way of testing the question. as a doctor of divinity he could lawfully, as custom had been, demand an open and fair discussion of the matter with teachers and theologians. and upon this he now resolved. the ninety-five theses. he framed a list of propositions on the points in question. they were in latin, for his appeal was to theologians, and not yet to the common heart and mind of germany. to make them public, he took advantage of a great festival at wittenberg, when the town was full of visitors and strangers, and nailed them to the door of the new castle church, october , . these were the famous _ninety-five theses_. they were plainly-worded statements of the same points he had made in the confessional and in his sermon. they contained no assault upon the church, no arraignment of the pope, no personal attack on any one. neither were they given as necessarily true, but as what luther believed to be true, and the real truth or falsity of which he desired to have decided in the only way questions of faith and salvation can be rightly decided. the whole matter was fairly, humbly, and legitimately put. "i, martin luther, augustinian at wittenberg," he added at the end, "hereby declare that i have written these propositions against indulgences. i understand that some, not knowing what they affirm, are of opinion that i am a heretic, though our renowned university has not condemned me, nor any temporal or spiritual authority. therefore, now again, as often heretofore, i beg of one and all, for the sake of the true christian faith, to show me the better way, if peradventure they have learned it from above, or at least to submit their opinion to the decision of god and the church; for i am not so insane as to set up my views above everything and everybody, nor so silly as to accept the fables invented by men in preference to the word of god." it is from the nailing up of these _theses_ that the history of the great reformation dates; for the hammer-strokes which fixed that parchment started the alpine avalanche which overwhelmed the pride of rome and broke the stubborn power which had reigned supreme for a thousand years. effect of the theses. as no one came forward to discuss his theses, luther resolved to publish them to the world. in fourteen days they overspread germany. in a month they ran through all christendom. one historian says it seemed as if the angels of god were engaged in spreading them. at a single stroke, made in modesty and faith, luther had become the most noted person in germany--the man most talked of in all the world--the mouthpiece of the best people in christendom--the leader of a mighty revolution. reuchlin read, and thanked god. erasmus read, and rejoiced, only counseling moderation and prudence. the emperor maximilian read, and wrote to the saxon elector: "take care of the monk luther, for the time may come when we will need him." the bishop of wurzburg read, and was filled with gladness, and wrote to the elector frederick to hold on to luther as a preacher of the truth of god. the prior of steinlausitz read, and could not suppress his joy. "see here," said he to his monks: "the long-waited-for has come; he tells the truth. _berg_ means mountain, and _wittenberg_ is the mountain whither all the world will come to seek wisdom, and will find it." a student of annaberg read, and said, "this luther is the reaper in my dream, whom the voice bade me follow and gather in the bread of life;" and from that hour he was a fast friend of luther and his cause, and became the distinguished myconius. the pope himself read the theses, and did not think unfavorably of their author. he saw in luther a man of learning and brilliant genius, and that pleased him. the questions mooted he referred to a mere monkish jealousy--an unsober gust of passion which would soon blow over. he did not then realize the seriousness which was in the matter. his sphere was heathen art and worldly magnificence, not searching into the ways of god's salvation. the great german heart was moved, and the brave daring of him whose voice was thus lifted up against the abominations which were draining the country to fill the pope's coffers was hailed with enthusiasm. had luther been a smaller man he would have been swept away by his vast and sudden fame. but not all was sunshine. erasmus wittily said, luther committed two unpardonable sins: he touched the pope's crown and the monks' bellies. such effrontery would needs raise a mighty outcry. prierias, the master of the sacred palace, pronounced luther a heretic. hochstrat of cologne, reuchlin's enemy, clamored for fire to burn him. the indulgence-venders thundered their anathemas, promising a speedy holocaust of luther's body. the monasteries took on the form of so many kennels of enraged hounds howling to each other across the spiritual waste. and even some who pronounced the theses scriptural and orthodox shook their heads and sought to quash such dangerous proceedings. but luther remained firm at his post. he honestly believed what he had written, and he was not afraid of the truth. if the powers of the world should come down upon him and kill him, he was prepared for the slaughter. in all the mighty controversy he was ever ready to serve the gospel with his life or with his death. tetzel's end. tetzel continued to bray and fume against him from pulpit and press, denouncing him as a heresiarch, heretic, and schismatic. by wimpina's aid he issued a reply to luther's sermon, and also counter-theses on luther's propositions. but the tide was turning in the sea of human thinking. luther's utterances had turned it. the people were ready to tear the mountebank to pieces. two years later he imploringly complained to the pope's nuncio, miltitz, that such fury pursued him in germany, bohemia, hungary, and poland that he was nowhere safe. even the representative of the pope gave the wretch no sympathy. when luther heard of his illness he sent him a letter to tell him that he had forgiven him all. he died in leipsic, neglected, smitten in soul, and full of misery, july , . luther's growing influence. six months after the nailing up of the theses, luther was the hero of a general convention of the augustinians in heidelberg. he there submitted a series of propositions on philosophy and theology, which he defended with such convincing clearness and tact that he won for himself and his university great honor and renown. better still, four learned young men who there heard him saw the truth of his positions, and afterward became distinguished defenders of the reformation. his cause, meanwhile, was rapidly gaining friends. his replies to tetzel, prierias, hochstrat, and eck had gone forth to deepen the favorable impression made by the ninety-five theses. truth had once more lifted up its head in europe, and rome would find it no child's play to put it down. the skirmish-lines of the hierarchy had been met and driven in. the tug of serious battle was now to come. his appeal to the pope. luther made the advance. he wrote out explanations (or "_resolutions_") of his theses, and sent them, with a letter, to the pope. with great confidence, point, and elegance, but with equal submissiveness and humility, he spoke of the completeness of christ for the salvation of every true believer, without room or need for penances and other satisfactions; of the evilness of the times, and the pressing necessity for a general reform; of the damaging complaints everywhere resounding against the traffic in indulgences; of his unsuccessful appeals to the ecclesiastical princes; and of the unjust censures being heaped upon him for what he had done, entreating his holiness to instruct his humble petitioner, and condemn or approve, kill or preserve, as the voice of christ through him might be. he then believed that god's sanction had to come through the high clergy and heads of the church. many good christians had approved his theses, but he did not recognize in that the divine answer to his testimony. he said afterward: "i looked only to the pope, the cardinals, the bishops, the theologians, the jurisconsults, the monks, the priests, from whom i expected the breathing of the spirit." he had not yet learned what a bloody dragon claimed to impersonate the lamb of god. citation to answer for heresy. while, in open frankness, luther was thus meekly committing himself to the powers at rome, _they_ were meditating his destruction. insidiously they sought to deprive him of the elector's protection, and answered his humble and confiding appeal with a citation to appear before them to answer for heresy. things now were ominous of evil. wittenberg was filled with consternation. if luther obeyed, it was evident he would perish like so many faithful men before him; if he refused, he would be charged with contumacy and involve his prince. one and another expedient were proposed to meet the perplexity; but to secure a hearing in germany was all luther asked. to this the pope proved more willing than was thought. he was not sure of gaining by the public trial and execution of a man so deeply planted in the esteem of his countrymen, and by bringing him before a prudent legate he might induce him to retract and the trouble be ended; if not, it would be a less disturbing way of getting possession of the accused man. orders were therefore issued for luther to appear before cardinal cajetan at augsburg. luther before cajetan. on foot he undertook the journey, believed by all to be a journey to his death. but maximilian, then in the neighborhood of augsburg, gave him a safe-conduct, and cajetan was obliged to receive him with civility. he even embraced him with tokens of affection, thinking to win him to retraction. luther was much softened by these kindly manifestations, and was disposed to comply with almost anything if not required to deny the truth of god. the interviews were numerous. luther was told that it was useless to think that the civil powers would go to war for his protection; and where would he then be? his answer was: "i will be, as now, under the broad heavens of the almighty." remonstrances, entreaties, threatenings, and proposals of high distinction were addressed to him; but he wanted no cardinal's hat, and for nothing in rome's power would he consent to retract what he believed to be the gospel truth till shown wherein it was at variance with the divine word. cajetan's arguments tripped and failed at every point, and he could only reiterate that he had been sent to receive a retraction, not to debate the questions. luther as often promised this when shown from the scriptures to be in the wrong, but not till then. cajetan's mortification. foiled and disappointed in his designs, and astounded and impatient that a poor monk should thus set at naught all the prayers and powers of the sovereign of christendom, the cardinal bade him see his face no more until he had repented of his stubbornness. at this the friends of the reformer, fearing for his safety, clandestinely hurried him out of augsburg, literally grappling him up from his bed only half dressed, and brought him away to his university. he had answered the pope's summons, and yet was free! cajetan was mortified at the result, and was upbraided for his failure. in his chagrin he wrote angrily to the elector not to soil his name and lineage by sheltering a heretic, but to surrender luther at once, on pain of an interdict. the elector was troubled. luther had not been proven a heretic, neither did he believe him to be one; but he feared collision with the pope. luther said if he were in the elector's place he would answer the cardinal as he deserved for thus insulting an honest man; but, not to be an embarrassment to his prince, he agreed to leave the elector's dominions if he said so. but frederick would not surrender his distinguished subject to the legate, neither would he send him out of the country. it is hard to say which was here the nobler man, luther or his illustrious protector. progress of events. the minds of men by this time were much aroused, and luther's cause grew and strengthened. the learned melanchthon, reuchlin's relative and pupil, was added to the faculty at wittenberg, and became luther's chief co-laborer. the number of students in the university swelled to thousands, including the sons of noblemen and princes from all parts, who listened with admiration to luther's lectures and sermons and spread his fame and doctrines. and the feeling was deep and general that a new and marvelous light had arisen upon the world.[ ] it was now that maximilian died (jan. , ), and charles v., his grandson, a spanish prince of nineteen years, succeeded to his place. the imperial crown was laid at the feet of the elector frederick, luther's friend, but he declined it in favor of charles, only exacting a solemn pledge that he would not disturb the liberties of germany. civil freedom is one of the glorious fruits of the reformation, and here already it began to raise barricades against despotic power. footnotes: [ ] a writer of the roman church, in a vein of somewhat mingled sarcasm and seriousness, remarks: "the university had reason to be proud of luther, whose oral lectures attracted a multitude of strangers; these pilgrims from distant quarters joined their hands and bowed their heads at the sight of the towers of the city, like other travelers before jerusalem. wittenberg was like a new zion, whence the light of truth expanded to neighboring kingdoms, as of old from the holy city to pagan nations." the leipsic disputation. up to this time, however, there had been no questioning of the divine rights claimed by the hierarchy. luther was still a papist, and thought to grow his plants of evangelic faith under the shadow of the upas of ecclesiasticism. he had not yet been brought to see how his augustinian theology concerning sin and grace ran afoul of the entire round of the mediæval system and methods of holiness. it was only the famous leipsic disputation between him and dr. john eck that showed him the remoter and deeper relations of his position touching indulgences. this otherwise fruitless debate had the effect of making the nature and bearings of the controversy clear to both sides. eck now distinctly saw that luther must be forcibly put down or the whole papal system must fall; and luther was made to realize that he must surrender his doctrine of salvation through simple faith in christ or break with the pope and the hierarchical system. accepting the pontifical doctrines as true, eck claimed the victory, because he had driven luther to expressions at variance with those doctrines. on the other hand, luther had shown that the pontifical claims were without foundation in primitive christianity or the holy scriptures; that the papacy was not of divine authority or of the essence of the church; that the church existed before and beyond the papal hierarchy, as well as under it; that the only head of the universal christian church is christ himself; that wherever there is true faith in god's word, there the church is, whatever the form of external organization; that the popes could err and had erred, and councils likewise; and that neither separately nor together could they rightfully decree or ordain contrary to the scriptures, the only infallible rule. to all this eck could make no answer except that it was hussism over again, which the council of constance had condemned, and that, from the standpoint of the hierarchy, luther was a heretic and ought to be dealt with accordingly. results from the debate. luther now realized that the true gospel of god's salvation and the pontifical system were vitally and irreconcilably antagonistic; that the one could never be held in consistency with the other; and that there must come a final break between him and rome. this much depressed him. he showed his spiritual anguish by his deep dejection. but he soon rose above it. if he had the truth of god, as he verily believed, what were the pope and all devils against jehovah? and so he went on lecturing, preaching, writing, and publishing with his greatest power, brilliancy, and effectiveness. some of the best and most telling products of his pen now went forth to multitudes of eager readers. the glowing energy of his faith acted like a spreading fire, kindling the souls of men as they seldom have been kindled in any cause in any age. his _address to the nobility_ electrified all germany, and first fired the patriotic spirit of ulrich zwingli, the swiss reformer. his book on _the babylonian captivity of the church_ sounded a bugle-note which thrilled through all the german heart, gave bugenhagen to the reformation, and sent a shudder through the hierarchy.[ ] already, at maximilian's diet at augsburg to take measures against the turk, a latin pamphlet was openly circulated among the members which said that the turk to be resisted was living in italy; and miltitz, the pope's nuncio and chamberlain, confessed that from rome to altenberg he had found those greatly in the minority who did not side with luther. footnotes: [ ] glapio, the confessor of charles v., stated to chancellor brück at the diet of worms: "the alarm which i felt when i read the first pages of the _captivity_ cannot be expressed; they might be said to be lashes which scourged me from head to foot." luther's excommunication. but the tempest waxed fiercer and louder every day. luther's growing influence the more inflamed his enemies. hochstrat had induced two universities to condemn his doctrines. in sundry places his books were burned by the public hangman. eck had gone to italy, and was "moving the depths of hell" to secure the excommunication of the prejudged heretic. and could his bloodthirsty enemies have had their way, this would long since have come. but leo seems to have had more respect for luther than for them. learning and talent were more to him than any doctrines of the faith. the monks complained of him as too much given to luxury and pleasure to do his duty in defending the church. perhaps he had conscience enough to be ashamed to enforce his traffic in paper pardons by destroying the most honest and heroic man in germany. perhaps he did not like to stain his reign with so foul a record, even if dangerous complications should not attend it. whatever the cause, he was slow to respond to these clamors for blood. eck had almost as much trouble to get him to issue the bull of luther's excommunication as he had to answer luther's arguments in the leipsic discussion. but he eventually procured it, and undertook to enforce it. and yet, with all his zealous personal endeavors and high authority, he could hardly get it posted, promulged, or at all respected in germany. his parchment thunder lost its power in coming across the alps. miltitz also was in his way, who, with equal authority from the pope, was endeavoring to supersede the bull by attempts at reconciliation. it came to wittenberg in such a sorry plight that luther laughed at it as having the appearance of a forgery by dr. eck. he knew the pope had been bullied into the issuing of it, but this was the biting irony by which he indicated the character of the men by whom it was moved and the pitiable weakness to which such thunders had been reduced. but it was a bull of excommunication nevertheless. luther and his doctrines were condemned by the chief of christendom.[ ] multitudes were thrown into anxious perturbation. if the strong arm of the emperor should be given to sustain the pope, who would be able to stand? adrian, one of the faculty of wittenberg, was so frightened that he threw down his office and hastened to join the enemy. amid the perils which surrounded luther powerful knights offered to defend him by force of arms; but he answered, "_no_; by _the word_ the world was conquered, by _the word_ the church was saved, and by _the word_ it must be restored." the thoughts of his soul were not on human power, but centred on the throne of him who lives for ever. it was christ's gospel that was in peril, and he was sure jehovah would not abandon his own cause. germany waited to see what he would do. nor was it long kept in suspense. footnotes: [ ] the bull was issued june , . it specified forty-one propositions out of luther's works which it condemned as heretical, scandalous, and offensive to pious ears. it forbade all persons to read his writings, upon pain of excommunication. such as had any of his books in their possession were commanded to burn them. he himself, if he did not publicly recant his errors and burn his books within sixty days, was pronounced an obstinate heretic, excommunicated and delivered over to satan. and it enjoined upon all secular princes, under pain of incurring the same censure, to seize his person and deliver him up to be punished as his crimes deserved; that is to be burnt as a heretic. luther and the pope's bull. in a month he discharged a terrific volley of artillery upon the papacy by his book _against the bull of antichrist_. in thirteen days later he brought formal charges against the pope--_first_, as an unjust judge, who condemns without giving a hearing; _second_, as a heretic and apostate, who requires denial that faith is necessary; _third_, as an antichrist, who sets himself against the holy scriptures and usurps their authority; and _fourth_, as a blasphemer of the church and its free councils, who declares them nothing without himself. this was carrying the war into africa. appealing to a future general council and the scriptures as superior to popes, he now called upon the emperor, electors, princes, and all classes and estates in the whole german empire, as they valued the gospel and the favor of christ, to stand by him in this demonstration. and, that all might be certified in due form, he called a notary and five witnesses to hear and attest the same as verily the solemn act and deed of martin luther, done in behalf of himself and all who stood or should stand with him. rome persisted in forcing a schism, and this was luther's bill of divorcement. nay, more; as rome had sealed its condemnation of him by burning his books, he built a stack of fagots on the refuse piles outside the elster gate of wittenberg, invited thither the whole university, and when the fires were kindled and the flames were high, he cast into them, one by one, the books of the canon law, the decretals, the clementines, the papal extravagants, and all that lay at the base of the religion of the hierarchy! and when these were consumed he took leo's bull of excommunication, held it aloft, exclaiming with a loud voice, "since thou hast afflicted the saints of god, be thou consumed with fire unquenchable!" and dashed the impious document into the flames. well done was that! luther considered it the best act of his life. it was a brave heart, the bravest then living in this world, that dared to do it. but it was done then and for ever. wittenberg looked on with shoutings. the whole modern world of civilized man has ever since been looking on with thrilling wonder. and myriads of the sons of god and liberty are shouting over it yet. the miner's son had come up full abreast with the triple-crowned descendant of the medici. the monk of wittenberg had matched the proudest monarch in the world. henceforth the question was, which of them should sway the nations in the time to come? the diet of worms. the young emperor sided with the religion of the pope. the venerable elector frederick determined to stand by luther, at least till his case was fairly adjudged. he said it was not just to condemn a good and honest man unheard and unconvicted, and that "_justice must take precedence even of the pope_." conferences of state now became numerous and exciting, and the efforts of rome to have luther's excommunication recognized and enforced were many and various, but nothing short of a diet of the empire could settle the disturbance.[ ] such a diet was convoked by the young emperor for january, . it was the first of his reign, and the grandest ever held on german soil. philip of hesse came to it with a train of six hundred cavaliers. the electors, dukes, archbishops, landgraves, margraves, counts, bishops, barons, lords, deputies, legates, and ambassadors from foreign courts came in corresponding style. they felt it important to show their consequence at this first diet, and were all the more moved to be there in force because the exciting matter of reform was specified as one of the chief things to be considered. the result was one of the most august and illustrious assemblies of which modern history tells, and one which presented a spectacle of lasting wonder that a poor lone monk should thus have moved all the powers of the earth. footnotes: [ ] audin, in his _life of luther_, says: "a monk who wore a cassock out at the elbows had caused to the most powerful emperor in the world greater embarrassments than those which francis i., his unsuccessful rival at frankfort, threatened to raise against him in italy. with the cannon from his arsenal at ghent and his lances from namur, charles could beat the king of france between sunrise and sunset; but lances and cannon were impotent to subdue the religious revolution, which, like some of the glaciers which he crossed in coming from spain, acquired daily a new quantity of soil."--vol. i. chap. . again, in chap. , he says of the emperor: "the thought of measuring his strength with the hero of marignan was far from alarming him, but a struggle with the monk of wittenberg disturbed his sleep. he wished that they should try to overcome his obstinacy." doings of the romanists. for three months the diet wrangled over the affair of luther without reaching anything decided. the friends of rome were the chief actors, struggling in every way and hesitating at nothing to induce the diet and the emperor to acknowledge and enforce the pope's decree. but the influence of the german princes, especially that of the elector frederick, stood in the way; charles would not act, as he had no right to act, without the concurrence of the states, and the princes of germany held it unjust that luther should be condemned on charges which had never been fairly tried, on books which were not proven to be his, and especially since the sentence itself presented conditions with reference to which no answer had been legally ascertained. to overcome these oppositions different resorts were tried. leo issued a second bull, excommunicating luther absolutely, anathematizing him and all his friends and abettors. the pope's legate called for money to buy up influence for the romanists: "we must have money. send us money. money! money! or germany is lost!" the money came; but the reformer's friends could not be bought with bribes, however much the agents of rome needed such stimulation. trickery was brought into requisition to entrap luther's defenders by a secret proposal to compromise. luther was given great credit and right, except that he had gone a little too far, and it was only necessary to restrain him from further demonstrations. rome compromise with a man she had doubly excommunicated and anathematized! rome make terms with an outlaw whom she had infallibly doomed to eternal execration! yet with these proposals the emperor's confessor approached chancellor brück. but the chancellor's head was too clear to be caught by such treachery. then it was moved to refer the matter to a commission of arbitrators. this met with so much favor that the pope's legate, aleander, was alarmed lest luther should thereby escape, and hence set himself with unwonted energy to incite the emperor to decisive measures. charles was persuaded to make a demonstration, but demanded that the legate should first "convince the diet." aleander was the most famous orator rome had, and he rejoiced in his opportunity. he went before the assembly in a prepared speech of three hours in length to show up luther as a pestilent heretic, and the necessity of getting rid of him and his books and principles at once to prevent the world from being plunged into barbarism and utter desolation. he made a deep impression by his effort. it was only by the unexpected and crushing speech of duke george of saxony, luther's bitter personal enemy, that the train of things, so energetically wrought up, was turned. not in defence of luther, whom he disliked, but in defence of the german nation, he piled up before the door of the hierarchy such an overwhelming array of its oppressions, robberies, and scandals, and exposed with such an unsparing hand the falsities, profligacies, cupidity, and beastly indecencies of the roman clergy and officials, that the emperor hastened to recall the edict he had already signed, and yielded consent for luther to be called to answer for himself. luther summoned. in vain the pope's legate protested that it was not lawful thus to bring the decrees of the sovereign pontiff into question, or pleaded that luther's daring genius, flashing eyes, electric speech, and thrilling spirit would engender tumult and violence. on march th the emperor signed a summons and safe-conduct for the reformer to appear in worms within twenty-one days, to answer concerning his doctrines and writings. so far the thunders of the vatican were blank. with all the anxious fears which such a summons would naturally engender, luther resolved to obey it. the pope's adherents fumed in their helplessness when they learned that he was coming--coming, too, under the safe-conduct of the empire, coming to have a hearing before the diet!--_he_ whom the infallible vicar of heaven had condemned and anathematized! whither was the world drifting? luther's friends trembled lest he should share the fate of huss; his enemies trembled lest he should escape it; and both, in their several ways, tried to keep him back. placards of his condemnation were placed before him on the way, and spectacles to indicate his certain execution were enacted in his sight; but he was not the man to be deterred by the prospect of being burnt alive if god called for the sacrifice. lying fraud was also tried to seduce and betray him. glapio, the emperor's confessor, who had tried a similar trick upon the elector frederick, conceived the idea that if von sickingen and bucer could be won for the plot, a proposal to compromise the whole matter amicably might serve to beguile him to the château of his friend at ebernburg till his safe-conduct should expire, and then the liars could throw off the mask and dispose of him with credit in the eyes of rome. the glib and wily glapio led in the attempt. von sickingen and bucer were entrapped by his bland hypocrisy, and lent themselves to the execution of the specious proposition. but when they came to luther with it, he turned his back, saying, "if the emperor's confessor has anything to say to me he will find me at worms." but even his friends were alarmed at his coming. it was feared that he would be destroyed. the elector's confidential adviser sent a servant out to meet him, beseeching him by no means to enter the city. "go tell your master," said luther, "i will enter worms though as many devils should be there as tiles upon its houses!" and he did enter, with nobles, cavaliers, and gentry for his escort, and attended through the streets by a larger concourse than had greeted the entry of the emperor himself.[ ] footnotes: [ ] "the reception which he met with at worms was such as he might have reckoned a full reward of all his labors if vanity and the love of applause had been the principles by which he was influenced. greater crowds assembled to behold him than had appeared at the emperor's public entry; his apartments were daily filled with princes and personages of the highest rank; and he was treated with all the respect paid to those who possess the power of directing the understanding and sentiments of other men--a homage more sincere, as well as more flattering, than any which pre-eminence in birth or condition command."--robertson's _charles v._, vol. i. p. . luther at the diet. charles hurried to convene his council, saying, "luther is come; what shall we do with him?" a chancellor and bishop of flanders urged that he be despatched at once, and this scandalous humiliation of the holy see terminated. he said sigismund had allowed huss to be burned, and no one was bound to keep faith with a heretic. but the emperor was more moral than the teachings of his church, and said, "not so; we have given our promise, and we ought to keep it." on the morrow luther was conducted to the diet by the marshal of the empire. the excited people so crowded the gates and jammed about the doors that the soldiers had to use their halberds to open a way for him. an instinct not yet interpreted drew their hearts and allied them with the hero. from the thronged streets, windows, and housetops came voices as he passed--voices of petition and encouragement--voices of benediction on the brave and true--voices of sympathy and adjuration to be firm in god and in the power of his might. it was germany, scandinavia, england, scotland, and holland; it was the americas and hundreds of young republics yet unborn; it was the whole world of all after-time, with its free gospel, free conscience, free speech, free government, free science, and free schools,--uttering themselves in those half-smothered voices. luther heard them and was strengthened. but there was no danger he would betray the momentous trust. that morning, amid great rugged prayers which broke from him like massive rock-fragments hot and burning from a volcano of mingled faith and agony, laying one hand on the open bible and lifting the other to heaven, he cast his soul on omnipotence, in pledge unspeakable to obey only his conscience and his god. whether for life or death, his heart was fixed. a few steps more and he stood before imperial majesty, encompassed by the powers and dignitaries of the earth, so brave, calm, and true a man that thrones and kings looked on in silent awe and admiration, and even malignant scorn for the moment retreated into darkness. since he who wore the crown of thorns stood before pontius pilate there had not been a parallel to this scene.[ ] footnotes: [ ] a romanist thus describes the picture: "when the approach of luther was heard there ensued one of those deep silences in which the heart alone, by its hurried pulsations, gives sign of life. attention was diverted from the emperor to the monk. on the appearance of luther every one rose, regardless of the sovereign's presence. it inspired werner with one of the finest acts of his tragedy.... heine has glorified the appearance at worms. the catholic himself loves to contemplate that black gown in the presence of those lords and barons caparisoned in iron and armed with helmet and spear, and is moved by the voice of 'that young friar' who comes to defy all the powers of the earth."--audin's _life of luther_. "all parties must unite in admiring and venerating the man who, undaunted and alone, could stand before such an assembly, and vindicate with unshaken courage what he conceived to be the cause of religion, of liberty, and of truth, fearless of any reproaches but those of his own conscience, or of any disapprobation but that of his god."--roscoe's _life of leo x._, vol. iv. p. . luther himself, afterward recalling the event, said: "it must indeed have been god who gave me my boldness of heart; i doubt if i could show such courage again." luther's refusal to recant. 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."[ ] 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! footnotes: [ ] "with this noble protest was laid the keystone of the reformation. the pontifical hierarchy shook to its centre, and the great cause of truth and regenerate religion spread with electric speed. the marble tomb of ignorance and error gave way, as it were, of a sudden; a thousand glorious events and magnificent discoveries thronged upon each other with pressing haste to behold and congratulate the mighty birth, the new creation, of which they were the harbingers, when, with a steady and triumphant step, the peerless form of human intellect rose erect, and, throwing off from its freshening limbs the death-shade and the grave-clothes by which it was enshrouded, ascended to the glorious resurrection of that noontide lustre which irradiates the horizon of our own day, rejoicing like a giant to run his race."--john mason good's _book of nature_, p. . luther's condemnation. after luther and his friends left worms the emperor issued an edict putting him and all his adherents under the ban of the empire, forbidding any one to give him food or shelter, calling on all who found him to arrest him, commanding all his books to be burned, and ordering the seizure of his friends and the confiscation of their possessions. it was what germany got for putting an austro-spanish bigot on the imperial throne. luther in the wartburg. but the cause of rome was not helped by it. luther's person was made safe by the elector, who arranged a friendly capture by which he was concealed in the wartburg in charge of the knights. no one knew what had become of him. his mysterious disappearance was naturally referred to some foul play of the romanists, and the feeling of resentment was intense and deep. indeed, germany was now bent on throwing off the religion of the hierarchy. no matter what it may once have been, no matter what service it may have rendered in helping europe through the dark ages, it had become gangrened, perverted, rotten, offensive, unbearable. the very means rome took to defend it increased revolt against it. it had come to be an oppressive lie, and it had to go. no bulls of popes or edicts of emperors could alter the decree of destiny. and a great and blessed fortune it was that luther still lived to guide and counsel in the momentous transition. but providence had endowed him for the purpose, and so preserved him for its execution. what was born with the theses, and baptized before the imperial diet at worms, he was now to nourish, educate, catechise, and prepare for glorious confirmation before a similar diet in the after years. translation of the bible. while in the wartburg he was forbidden to issue any writings. leisure was thus afforded for one of the most important things connected with the reformation. those ten months he utilized to prepare for germany and for the world a translation of the holy scriptures, which itself was enough to immortalize the reformer's name. great intellectual monuments have come down to us from the sixteenth century. it was an age in which the human mind put forth some of its noblest demonstrations. great communions still look back to its confessions as their rallying-centres, and millions of worshipers still render their devotions in the forms which then were cast. but pre-eminent over all the achievements of that sublime century was the giving of god's word to the people in their own language, which had its chief centre and impulse in the production of luther's _german bible_. well has it been said, "he who takes up that, grasps a whole world in his hand--a world which will perish only when this green earth itself shall pass away." it was the word that kindled the heart of luther to the work of reformation, and the word alone could bring it to its consummation. with the word the whole church of christ and the entire fabric of our civilization must stand or fall. undermine the bible and you undermine the world. it is the one, true, and only charter of faith, liberty, and salvation for man, without which this race of ours is a hopeless and abandoned wreck. and when luther gave forth his german bible, it was not only a transcendent literary achievement, which created and fixed the classic forms of his country's language,[ ] but an act of supremest wisdom and devotion; for the hope of the world is for ever cabled to the free and open word of god. footnotes: [ ] chevalier bunsen says; "it is luther's genius applied to the bible which has preserved the only unity which is, in our days, remaining to the german nation--that of language, literature, and thought. there is no similar instance in the known history of the world of a single man achieving such a work." luther's conservatism. up to the time of luther's residence in the wartburg nothing had been done toward changing the outward forms, ceremonies, and organization of the church. the great thing with him had been to get the inward, central doctrine right, believing that all else would then naturally come right in due time. but while he was hidden and silent certain fanatics thrust themselves into this field, and were on the eve of precipitating everything to destruction. tidings of the violent revolutionary spirit which had broken out reached him in his retreat and stirred him with sorrowful indignation, for it was the most damaging blow inflicted on the reformation. it is hard for men to keep their footing amid deep and vast commotions and not drift into ruinous excesses. storch, and münzer, and carlstadt, and melanchthon himself, were dangerously affected by the whirl of things. even good men sometimes forget that society cannot be conserved by mere negations; that wild and lawless revolution can never work a wholesome and abiding reformation; that the perpetuity of the church is an historic chain, each new link of which depends on those which have gone before. there was precious gold in the old conglomerate, which needed to be discriminated, extracted, and preserved. the divine foundations were not to be confounded with the rubbish heaped upon them. there was still a church of christ under the hierarchy, although the hierarchy was no part of its life or essence. the zwickau prophets, with their new revelations and revolts against civil authority; the wittenberg iconoclasts, with their repudiation of study and learning and all proper church order; and the sacramentarians, with their insidious rationalism against the plain word,--were not to be entrusted with the momentous interests with which the cause of the reformation was freighted. and hence, at the risk of the elector's displeasure and at the peril of his life, luther came forth from his covert to withstand the violence which was putting everything in jeopardy. grandly also did he reason out the genuine gospel principles against all these parties. he comprehended his ground from centre to circumference, and he held it alike against erring friends and menacing foes. the swollen torrent of events never once obscured his prophetic insight, never disturbed the balance of his judgment, never shook his hold upon the right. with a master-power he held revolutions and wars in check, while he revised and purified the liturgy and order of the church, wrought out the evangelic truth in its applications to existing things, and reared the renewed habilitation of the pure word and sacraments. growth of the reformation. it was now that pope leo died. his glory lasted but eight years. his successor, adrian vi., was a moderate man, of good intentions, though he could not see what evil there was in indulgences. he exhorted germany to get rid of luther, but said the church must be reformed, that the holy see had been for years horribly polluted, and that the evils had affected head and members. he was in solemn earnest this time, and began to change and purify the papal court. to some this was as if the voice of luther were being echoed from st. peter's chair, and adrian suddenly died, no man knows of what,[ ] and clement vii., a relative of leo x., was put upon the papal throne. in a diet was convened at nuremberg with reference to these same matters. campeggio, the pope's legate, thought it prudent to make his way thither without letting himself be known, and wrote back to his master that he had to be very cautious, as the majority of the diet consisted of "great lutherans." at this diet the edict of worms was virtually annulled, and it was plain enough that "great lutherans" had become very numerous and powerful. luther himself had become of sufficient consequence for henry viii., king of england, to write a book against him, for which the pope gave him the title of "defender of the faith," and for which luther repaid him in his own coin. erasmus also, long the prince of the whole literary world, was dogged into the writing of a book against the great reformer. poor erasmus found his match, and was overwhelmed with the result. he afterward sadly wrote: "my troops of friends are turned to enemies. everywhere scandal pursues me and calumny denies my name. every goose now hisses at erasmus." in , luther's friend and protector, the elector frederick, died. this would have been a sad blow for the reformation had there been no one of like mind to take his place. but god had the man in readiness. "frederick the wise" was succeeded by his brother, "john the constant." in hesse, in holland, in scandinavia, in prussia, in poland, in switzerland, in france, _everywhere_, the reformation advanced. duke george of saxony raged, got up an alliance against the growing cause, and beheaded citizens of leipsic for having luther's writings in their houses. eck still howled from ingolstadt for fire and fagots. the dukes of bavaria were fierce with persecutions. the archbishop of mayence punished cities because they would not have his priests for pastors. the emperor from spain announced his purpose to crush and exterminate "the wickedness of lutheranism." but it was all in vain. the sun had risen, the new era had come! luther now issued his _catechisms_, which proved a great and glorious aid to the true gospel. henceforth the children were to be bred up in the pure faith. matthesius says: "if luther in his lifetime had achieved no other work but that of bringing his two catechisms into use, the whole world could not sufficiently thank and repay him." a quarrel between the emperor and the pope also contributed to the progress of the reformation. a diet at spire in had interposed a check to the persecuting spirit of the romanists, and granted toleration to those of luther's mind in all the states where his doctrines were approved. the respite lasted for three years, until charles and clement composed their difference and united to wreak their wrath upon luther and his adherents. footnotes: [ ] the death of adrian vi., on the th of september, , was a subject of general rejoicing in rome. there was a crown of flowers hung to the door of his physician, with a card appended which read, "_to the savior of his country_." protestants and war. a second diet at spire, in , revoked the former act of toleration, and demanded of all the princes and estates an unconditional surrender to the pope's decrees. this called forth the heroic _protest_ of those who stood with luther. they refused to submit, claiming that in matters of divine service and the soul's salvation conscience and god must be obeyed rather than earthly powers. it was from this that the name of _protestants_ originated--a name which half the world now honors and accepts. the signers of this protest also pledged to each other their mutual support in defending their position. zwingli urged them to make war upon the emperor. he himself afterward took the sword, and perished by it. calvin, cranmer, knox, and even the puritan fathers as far as they had power and occasion, resorted to physical force and the civil arm to punish the rejecters of their creed. luther repudiated all such coercion. the sword was at his command, but he opposed its use for any purposes of religion. all the weight of his great influence was given to prevent his friends from mixing external force with what should ever have its seat only in the calm conviction of the soul. he thus practically anticipated roger williams and william penn and the most lauded results of modern freedom--not from constraint of circumstances and personal interests, but from his own clear insight into gospel principles. bloody religious wars came after he was dead, the prospect of which filled his soul with horror, and to which he could hardly give consent even in case of direst necessity for self-defence; but it is a transcendent fact that while he lived they were held in abeyance, most of all by his prayers and endeavors. he fought, indeed, as few men ever fought, but the only sword he wielded was "the sword of the spirit, which is the word of god." the confession of augsburg. and yet another imperial diet was convened with reference to these religious disturbances. it was held in augsburg in the spring of . the emperor was in the zenith of his power. he had overcome his french rival. he had spoiled rome, humbled the pope, and reorganized italy. the turks had withdrawn their armies. and the only thing in the way of a consolidated empire was the reformation in germany. to crush this was now his avowed purpose, and he anticipated no great hardship in doing it. he entered augsburg with unwonted magnificence and pomp. he had spoken very graciously in his invitation to the princes, but it was in his heart to compel their submission to his former edict of worms. it behoved them to be prepared to make a full exhibit of their principles, giving the ultimatum on which they proposed to stand. luther had been formulating articles embodying the points adhered to in his reformatory teachings. he had prepared one set for the marburg conference with the swiss divines. he had revised and elaborated these into the seventeen articles of schwabach. he had also prepared another series on abuses, submitted to the elector john at torgau. all these were now committed to melanchthon for careful elaboration into complete style and harmony for use at the diet. luther assisted in this work up to the time when the diet convened, and what remained to be done was completed in augsburg by melanchthon and the lutheran divines present with him. luther himself could not be there, as he was a dead man to the law, and by command of his prince was detained at coburg while the diet was in session. the first act of the emperor was to summon the protesting princes before him, asking of them the withdrawal of their protest. this they refused. they felt that they had constitutional right, founded on the decision of spire, to resist the emperor's demand; and they did not intend to surrender the just principles put forth in their noble protest. they celebrated divine service in their quarters, led by their own clergy, and refused to join in the procession at the roman festival of corpus christi. this gave much offence, and for the sake of peace they discontinued their services during the diet. at length they were asked to make their doctrinal presentation. melanchthon had admirably performed the work assigned him in the making up of the confession, and on the th day of june, , the document, duly signed, was read aloud to the emperor in the hearing of many. the effect of it upon the assembly was indescribable. many of the prejudices and false notions against the reformers were effectually dissipated. the enemies of the reformation felt that they had solemn realities to deal with which they had never imagined. others said that this was a more effectual preaching than that which had been suppressed. "christ is in the diet," said justus jonas, "and he does not keep silence. god's word cannot be bound." in a word, the world now had added to it one of its greatest treasures--the renowned and imperishable augsburg confession. luther was eager for tidings of what transpired at the diet. and when the confession came, as signed and delivered, he wrote: "i thrill with joy that i have lived to see the hour in which christ is preached by so many confessors to an assembly so illustrious in a form so beautiful." even reformed authors, from calvin down, have cheerfully added their testimony to the worth and excellence of this magnificent confession--the first since the athanasian creed. a late writer of this class says of it that "it best exhibits the prevailing genius of the german reformation, and will ever be cherished as one of the noblest monuments of faith from the pentecostal period of protestantism." the romanists attempted to answer the noble confession, but would not make their confutation public. compromises were proposed, but they came to naught. the imperial troops were called into the city and the gates closed to intimidate the princes, but it resulted in greater alarm to the romanists than to them. the confessors had taken their stand, and they were not to be moved from it. the diet ended with the decision that they should have until the following spring to determine whether they would submit to the roman church or not, and, if not, that measures would then be taken for their extermination. the league of smalcald. the emperor's edict appeared november th, and the protestant princes at once proceeded to form a league for mutual protection against attempts to force their consciences in these sacred matters. it was with difficulty that the consent of luther could be obtained for what, to him, looked like an arrangement to support the gospel by the sword. but he yielded to a necessity forced by the intolerance of rome. a convention was held at smalcald at christmas, , and there was formed the _league of smalcald_, which planted the political foundations of religious liberty for our modern world. by the presentation of the great confession of augsburg, along with the formation of the league of smalcald, the cause of luther became embodied in the official life of nations, and the new era of freedom had come safely to its birth. long and terrible storms were yet to be passed, but the ship was launched which no thunders of emperors or popes could ever shatter.[ ] when the months of probation ended, france had again become troublesome to the emperor, and the turks were renewing their movements against his dominions. he also found that he could not count on the catholic princes for the violent suppression of the protestants. luther's doctrines had taken too deep hold upon their subjects to render it safe to join in a war of extermination against them. the zwinglians also coalesced with the lutherans in presenting a united front against the threatened bloody coercion. the smalcald league, moreover, had grown to be a power which even the emperor could not despise. he therefore resolved to come to terms with the protestant members of his empire, and a peace--at least a truce--was concluded at nuremberg, which left things as they were to wait until a general council should settle the questions in dispute. footnotes: [ ] "the reformation of luther kindled up the minds of men afresh, leading to new habits of thought and awakening in individuals energies before unknown to themselves. the religious controversies of this period changed society, as well as religion, and to a considerable extent, where they did not change the religion of the state, they changed man himself in his modes of thought, his consciousness of his own powers, and his desire of intellectual attainment. the spirit of commercial and foreign adventure on the one hand and, on the other the assertion and maintenance of religious liberty, having their source in the reformation, and this love of religious liberty drawing after it or bringing along with it, as it always does, an ardent devotion to the principle of civil liberty also, were the powerful influences under which character was formed and men trained for the great work of introducing english civilization, english law, and, what is more than all, anglo-saxon blood, into the wilderness of north america."--daniel webster, _works_, vol. i. p. . luther's later years. luther lived nearly fifteen years after this grand crowning of his testimony, diligently laboring for christ and his country. the most brilliant part of his career was over, but his labors still were great and important. indeed, his whole life was intensely laborious. he was a busier man than the first napoleon. his publications, as reckoned up by seckendorf, amount to eleven hundred and thirty-seven. large and small together, they number seven hundred and fifteen volumes--one for every two weeks that he lived after issuing the first. even in the last six weeks of his life he issued thirty-one publications--more than five per week. if he had had no other cares and duties but to occupy himself with his pen, this would still prove him a very hercules in authorship.[ ] but his later years were saddened by many anxieties, afflictions, and trials. under god, he had achieved a transcendent work, and his confidence in its necessity, divinity, and perpetuity never failed; but he was much distressed to see it marred and damaged, as it was, by the weaknesses and passions of men. his great influence created jealousies. his persistent conservatism gave offence. those on whom he most relied betimes imperiled his cause by undue concessions and pusillanimity. the friends of the reformation often looked more to political than christian ends, or were more carnal than spiritual. threatening civil commotions troubled him. ultra reform attacked and blamed him. the agitations about a general council, which rome now treacherously urged, and meant to pack for its own purposes, gave him much anxiety. it was with reference to such a council that one other great document--_the articles of smalcald_--issued from his pen, in which he defined the true and final protestant position with regard to the hierarchy, and the fundamental organization of the church of christ. his bodily ailments also became frequent and severe. prematurely old, and worn out with cares, labors, and vexations--the common lot of great heroes and benefactors--he began to long for the heavenly rest. "i am weary of the world," said he, "and it is time the world were weary of me. the parting will be easy, like a traveler leaving his inn." he lived to his sixty-third year, and peacefully died in the faith he so effectually preached, while on a mission of reconciliation at the place where he was born, honored and lamented in his death as few men have ever been. his remains repose in front of the chancel in the castle church of wittenberg, on the door of which his own hand had nailed the ninety-five theses.[ ] footnotes: [ ] "never before was the human mind more prolific." "luther holds a high and glorious place in german literature." "in his manuscripts we nowhere discover the traces of fatigue or irritation, no embarrassment or erasures, no ill-applied epithet or unmanageable expression; and by the correctness of his writing we might imagine he was the copyist rather than the writer of the work."--so says _audin_, his roman catholic biographer. hallam's flippant and disparaging remarks on luther, contained in his _introduction to the literature of europe_, are simply outrageous, "stupid and senseless paragraphs," evidencing a presumption on the part of their author which deserves intensest rebuke. "hallam knows nothing about luther; he himself confesses his inability to read him in his native german; and this alone renders him incapable of judging intelligently respecting his merits as a writer; and, knowing nothing, it would have been honorable in him to say nothing, at least to say nothing disparagingly. and, by the way, it seems to us that writing a history of european literature without a knowledge of german is much like writing a history of metals without knowing anything of iron and steel.... luther's language became, through his writings, and has ever since remained, the language of literature and general intercourse among educated men, and is that which is now understood universally to be meant when _the german_ is spoken of. his translation of the bible is still as much the standard of purity for that language as homer is for the greek."--_dr. calvin e. stowe._ [ ] "nothing can be more edifying than the scene presented by the last days of luther, of which we have the most authentic and detailed accounts. when dying he collected his last strength and offered up the following prayer: 'heavenly father, eternal, merciful god, thou hast revealed to me thy dear son, our lord jesus christ. him i have taught, him i have confessed, him i love as my saviour and redeemer, whom the wicked persecute, dishonor, and reprove. take my poor soul up to thee!' "then two of his friends put to him the solemn question: 'reverend father, do you die in christ and in the doctrine you have constantly preached?' he answered by an audible and joyful '_yes_;' and, repeating the verse, 'father, into thy hands i commend my spirit,' he expired peacefully, without a struggle."--_encyc. britannica._ personale of luther. the personal appearance of this extraordinary man is but poorly given in the painted portraits of him. written descriptions inform us that he was of medium size, handsomely proportioned, and somewhat darkly complected. his arched brows, high cheek-bones, and powerful jaws and chin gave to his face an outline of ruggedness; but his features were regular, and softened all over with benevolence and every refined feeling. he had remarkable eyes, large, full, deep, dark, and brilliant, with a sort of amber circle around the pupil, which made them seem to emit fire when under excitement. his hair was dark and waving, but became entirely white in his later years. his mouth was elegantly formed, expressive of determination, tenderness, affection, and humor. his countenance was elevated, open, brave, and unflinching. his neck was short and strong and his breast broad and full. though compactly built, he was generally spare and wasted from incessant studies, hard labor, and an abstemious life. mosellanus, the moderator at the leipsic disputation, describes him quite fully as he appeared at that time, and says that "his body was so reduced by cares and study that one could almost count his bones." he himself makes frequent allusion to his wasted and enfeebled body. his health was never robust. he was a small eater. melanchthon says: "i have seen him, when he was in full health, absolutely neither eat nor drink for four days together. at other times i have seen him, for many days, content with the slightest allowance, a salt herring and a small hunch of bread per day." mosellanus further says that his manners were cultured and friendly, with nothing of stoical severity or pride in him--that he was cheerful and full of wit in company, and at all times fresh, joyous, inspiring, and pleasant. honest naturalness, grand simplicity, and an unpretentious majesty of character breathed all about him. an indwelling vehemency, a powerful will, and a firm confidence could readily be seen, but calm and mellowed with generous kindness, without a trace of selfishness or vanity. he was jovial, free-spoken, open, easily approached, and at home with all classes. audin says of him that "his voice was clear and sonorous, his eye beaming with fire, his head of the antique cast, his hands beautiful, and his gesture graceful and abounding--at once rabelais and fontaine, with the droll humor of the one and the polished elegance of the other." in society and in his home he was genial, playful, instructive, and often brilliant. his _table-talk_, collected (not always judiciously) by his friends, is one of the most original and remarkable of productions. he loved children and young people, and brought up several in his house besides his own. he had an inexhaustible flow of ready wit and good-humor, prepared for everybody on all occasions. he was a frank and free correspondent, and let out his heart in his letters, six large volumes of which have been preserved. he was specially fond of music, and cultivated it to a high degree. he could sing and play like a woman.[ ] "i have no pleasure in any man," said he, "who despises music. it is no invention of ours; it is the gift of god. i place it next to theology." he was himself a great musician and hymnist. handel confesses that he derived singular advantage from the study of his music; and coleridge says: "he did as much for the reformation by his hymns as by his translation of the bible." to this day he is the chief singer in a church of pre-eminent song. heine speaks of "those stirring songs which escaped from him in the very midst of his combats and necessities, like flowers making their way from between rough stones or moonbeams glittering among dark clouds." _ein feste burg_ welled from his great heart like the gushing of the waters from the smitten rock of horeb to inspirit and refresh god's faint and doubting people as long as the church is in this earthly wilderness. there is a mighty soul in it which lifts one, as on eagles' wings, high and triumphant over the blackest storms. and his whole life was a brilliantly enacted epic of marvelous grandeur and pathos.[ ] footnotes: [ ] mattähus ratzenberger, in a passage of his biography preserved in the _bibliotheca ducalis gothana_, says: "lutherus had also this custom: as soon as he had eaten the evening meal with his table companions he would fetch out of his little writing-room his _partes_ and hold a _musicam_ with those of them who had a mind for music. greatly was he delighted when a good composition of the old master fitted the responses or _hymnos de tempore anni_, and especially did he enjoy the _cantu gregoriana_ and chorale. but if at times he perceived in a new song that it was incorrectly copied he set it again upon the lines (that is, he brought the parts together and rectified it _in continenti_). right gladly did he join in the singing when _hymnus_ or _responsorium de tempore_ had been set by the _musicus_ to a _cantum gregorianum_, as we have said, and his young sons, martinus and paulus, had also after table to sing the _responsoria de tempore_, as at christmas, _verbum caro factum est_, _in principio erat verbum_; at easter, _christus resurgens ex mortuis_, _vita sanctorum_, _victimæ paschali laudes_, etc. in these _responsoria_ he always sang along with his sons, and in _cantu figurali_ he sang the alto." the alto which luther sang must not be confounded with the alto part of to-day. here it means the _cantus firmus_, the melody around which the old composers wove their contrapuntal ornamentation. luther was the creator of german congregational singing. [ ] luther's first poetic publication seems to have been certain verses composed on the martyrdom of two young christian monks, who were burned alive at brussels in for their faithful confession of the evangelical doctrines. a translation of a part of this composition is given in d'aubigné's _history of the reformation_ in these beautiful and stirring words: "flung to the heedless winds or on the waters cast, their ashes shall be watched, and gathered at the last; and from that scattered dust, around us and abroad, shall spring a plenteous seed of witnesses for god. "jesus hath now received their latest living breath, yet vain is satan's boast of victory in their death. still, still, though dead, they speak, and trumpet-tongued proclaim to many a wakening land the one availing name." audin, though a romanist, says: "the hymns which he translated from the latin into german may be unreservedly praised, as also those which he composed for the members of his own communion. he did not travesty the sacred word nor set his anger to music. he is grave, simple, solemn, and grand. he was at once the poet and musician of a great number of his hymns." his great qualities. luther's qualities of mind, heart, and attainment were transcendent. though naturally meek and diffident, when it came to matters of duty and conviction he was courageous, self-sacrificing, and brave beyond any mere man known to history. elijah fled before the threats of jezebel, but no powers on earth could daunt the soul of luther. even the apparitions of the devil himself could not disconcert him. roman catholic authors agree that "nature gave him a german industry and strength and an italian spirit and vivacity," and that "nobody excelled him in philosophy and theology, and nobody equaled him in eloquence." his mental range was not confined to any one set of subjects. in the midst of his profound occupation with questions of divinity and the church "his mind was literally world-wide. his eyes were for ever observant of what was around him. at a time when science was hardly out of its shell he had observed nature with the liveliest curiosity. he studied human nature like a dramatist. shakespeare himself drew from him. his memory was a museum of historical information, anecdotes of great men, and old german literature, songs, and proverbs, to the latter of which he made many rich additions from his own genius. scarce a subject could be spoken of on which he had not thought and on which he had not something remarkable to say."[ ] in consultations upon public affairs, when the most important things hung in peril, his contemporaries speak with amazement of the gigantic strength of his mind, the unexampled acuteness of his intellect, the breadth and loftiness of his understanding and counsels. but, though so great a genius, he laid great stress on sound and thorough learning and study. "the strength and glory of a town," said he, "does not depend on its wealth, its walls, its great mansions, its powerful armaments, but in the number of its learned, serious, kind, and well-educated citizens." he was himself a great scholar, far beyond what we would suspect in so perturbed a life, or what he cared to parade in his writings. he mastered the ancient languages, and insisted on the perpetual study of them as "the scabbard which holds the sword of the spirit, the cases which enclose the precious jewels, the vessels which contain the old wine, the baskets which carry the loaves and the fishes for the feeding of the multitude." his associates say of him that he was a great reader, eagerly perusing the church fathers, old and new, and all histories, well retaining what he read, and using the same with great skill as occasion called. melanchthon, who knew him well, and knew well how to judge of men's powers and attainments, said of him: "he is too great, too wonderful, for me to describe. whatever he writes, whatever he utters, goes to the soul and fixes itself like arrows in the heart. _he is a miracle among men._" nor was he without the humility of true greatness. newton's comparison of himself to a child gathering shells and pebbles on the shore, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before him, has been much cited and lauded as an illustration of the modesty of true science. but long before newton had luther said of himself, in the midst of his mighty achievements, "only a little of the first fruits of wisdom--only a few fragments of the boundless heights, breadths, and depths of truth--have i been able to gather." he was a man of amazing _faith_--that mighty principle which looks at things invisible, joins the soul to divine omnipotence, and launches out unfalteringly upon eternal realities, and which is ever the chief factor in all god's heroes of every age. he dwelt in constant nearness and communion with the eternal spirit, which reigns in the heavens and raises the willing and obedient into blessed instruments of itself for the actualizing of ends and ideals beyond and above the common course of things. with his feet ever planted on the promises, he could lay his hands upon the throne, and thus was lifted into a sublimity of energy, endurance, and command which made him one of the phenomenal wonders of humanity. he was a very samson in spiritual vigor, and another hannah's son in the strength and victory of his prayers. dr. calvin e. stowe says: "there was probably never created a more powerful human being, a more gigantic, full-proportioned man, in the highest sense of the term. all that belongs to human nature, all that goes to constitute a man, had a strongly-marked development in him. he was a _model man_, one that might be shown to other beings in other parts of the universe as a specimen of collective manhood in its maturest growth." as the guide and master of one of the greatest revolutions of time we look in vain for any one with whom to compare him, and as a revolutionary orator and preacher he had no equal. richter says, "his words are half-battles." melanchthon likens them to thunderbolts. he was at once a peter and a paul, a socrates and an Æsop, a chrysostom and a savonarola, a shakespeare and a whitefield, all condensed in one. footnotes: [ ] froude supplemented. his alleged coarseness. some blame him for not using kid gloves in handling the ferocious bulls, bears, and he-goats with whom he had to do. but what, otherwise, would have become of the reformation? his age was savage, and the men he had to meet were savage, and the matters at stake touched the very life of the world. what would a chesterfield or an addison have been in such a contest? erasmus said he had horns, and knew how to use them, but that germany needed just such a master. he understood the situation. "these gnarled logs," said he, "will not split without iron wedges and heavy malls. the air will not clear without lightning and thunder."[ ] but if he was rough betimes, he could be as gentle and tender as a maiden, and true to himself in both. he could fight monsters all day, and in the evening take his lute, gaze at the stars, sing psalms, and muse upon the clouds, the fields, the flowers, the birds, dissolved in melody and devotion. feared by the mighty of the earth, the dictator and reprimander of kings, the children loved him, and his great heart was as playful among them as one of themselves. if he was harsh and unsparing upon hypocrites, malignants, and fools, he called things by their right names, and still was as loving as he was brave. since king david's lament over absalom no more tender or pathetic scene has appeared in history or in fiction than his outpouring of paternal love and grief over the deathbed, coffin, and grave of his young and precious daughter madeleine. "i know of few things more touching," says carlyle, "than those soft breathings of affection, soft as a child's or a mother's, in this great wild heart of luther;" and adds: "i will call this luther a true great man; great in intellect, in courage, affection, and integrity; one of our most lovable and precious men. great not as a hewn obelisk, but as an alpine mountain, so simple, honest, spontaneous; not setting up to be great at all; there for quite another purpose than being great. ah, yes, unsubduable granite, piercing far and wide into the heavens; yet, in the clefts of it, fountains, green, beautiful valleys with flowers. a right spiritual hero and prophet; once more, a true son of nature and fact, for whom these centuries, and many that are yet to come, will be thankful to heaven." footnotes: [ ] "it must be observed that the coarse vituperations which shock the reader in luther's controversial works were not peculiar to him, being commonly used by scholars and divines of the middle ages in their disputations. the invectives of valla, filelfo, poggio, and other distinguished scholars against each other are notorious; and this bad taste continued in practice long after luther down to the seventeenth century, and traces of it are found in writers of the eighteenth, even in some of the works of the polished and courtly voltaire."--_cyclopædia of soc. for diffus. of useful knowledge._ his marvelous achievements. a lone man, whose days were spent in poverty; who could withstand the mighty vatican and all its flaming bulls; whose influence evoked and swayed successive diets of the empire; whom repeated edicts from the imperial throne could not crush; whom the talent, eloquence, and towering authority of the roman hierarchy assailed in vain; whom the attacks of kings of state and kings of literature could not disable; to offset whose opinions the greatest general council the church of rome ever held had to be convened, and, after sitting eighteen years, could not adjourn without conceding much to his positions; and whose name the greatest and most enlightened nations of the earth hail with glad acclaim,--necessarily must have been a wonder of a man.[ ] to begin with a minority consisting of one, and conquer kingdoms with the mere sword of his mouth; to bear the anathemas of church and the ban of empire, and triumph in spite of them; to refuse to fall down before the golden image of the combined nebuchadnezzars of his time, though threatened with the burning fires of earth and hell; to turn iconoclast of such magnitude and daring as to think of smiting the thing to pieces in the face of principalities and powers to whom it was as god--nay, to attempt this, _and to succeed in it_,--here was sublimity of heroism and achievement explainable only in the will and providence of the almighty, set to recover his gospel to a perishing race.[ ] footnotes: [ ] "in no other instance have such great events depended upon the courage, sagacity, and energy of a single man, who, by his sole and unassisted efforts, made his solitary cell the heart and centre of the most wonderful and important commotion the world ever witnessed--who by the native force and vigor of his genius attacked and successfully resisted, and at length overthrew, the most awful and sacred authority that ever imposed its commands on mankind."--a letter prefixed to luther's _table-talk_ in the folio edition of . [ ] "to overturn a system of religious belief founded on ancient and deep-rooted prejudices, supported by power and defended with no less art than industry--to establish in its room doctrines of the most contrary genius and tendency, and to accomplish all this, not by external violence or the force of arms, are operations which historians the least prone to credulity and superstition ascribe to that divine providence which with infinite ease can bring about events which to human sagacity appear impossible."--robertson's _charles v._ his impress upon the world. to describe the fruits of luther's labors would require the writing of the whole history of modern civilization and the setting forth of the noblest characteristics of this our modern world.[ ] on the german nation he has left more of his impress than any other man has left on any nation. the german people love to speak of him as the creative master of their noble language and literature, the great prophet and glory of their country. there is nothing so consecrated in all his native land as the places which connect with his life, presence, and deeds. but his mighty impress is not confined to germany. "he grasped the iron trumpet of his mother-tongue and blew a blast that shook the nations from rome to the orkneys." he is not only the central figure of germany, but of europe and of the whole modern world. take luther away, with the fruits of his life and deeds, and man to-day would cease to be what he is. frederick von schlegel, though a romanist, affirms that "it was upon him and his soul that the fate of europe depended." and on the fate of europe then depended the fate of our race. michelet, also a romanist, pronounces luther "the restorer of liberty in modern times;" and adds: "if we at this day exercise in all its plenitude the first and highest privilege of human intelligence, it is to him we are indebted for it." "and that any faith," says froude, "any piety, is alive now, even in the roman church itself, whose insolent hypocrisy he humbled into shame, is due in large measure to the poor miner's son." he certainly is to-day the most potently living man who has lived this side of the middle ages. the pulsations of his great heart are felt through the whole _corpus_ of our civilization. "four potentates," says the late dr. krauth, "ruled the mind of europe in the reformation: the emperor, erasmus, the pope, and luther. the pope wanes; erasmus is little; the emperor is nothing; but luther abides as a power for all time. his image casts itself upon the current of ages as the mountain mirrors itself in the river which winds at its foot. he has monuments in marble and bronze, and medals in silver and gold, but his noblest monument is the best love of the best hearts, and the brightest and purest impression of his image has been left in the souls of regenerated nations." many and glowing are the eulogies which have been pronounced upon him, but frederick von schlegel, speaking from the side of rome, gives it as his conviction that "few, even of his own disciples, appreciate him highly enough." genius, learning, eloquence, and song have volunteered their noble efforts to do him justice; centuries have added their light and testimony; half the world in its enthusiasm has urged on the inspiration; but the story in its full dimensions has not yet been adequately told. the skill and energy of other generations will yet be taxed to give it, if, indeed, it ever can be given apart from the illuminations of eternity.[ ] footnotes: [ ] "from the commencement of the religious war in germany to the peace of westphalia scarce anything great or memorable occurred in the european political world with which the reformation was not essentially connected. every event in the history of the world in this interval, if not directly occasioned, was nearly affected, by this religious revolution, and every state, great or small, remotely or immediately felt its influence."--schiller's _thirty years' war_, vol. i. p. . [ ] "luther was as wonderful as he was great. his personal experience in divine things was as deep as his mind was mighty, large, and unbounded. though called by the most high, and continued by his appointment, in the midst of papal darkness, idolatry, and error, with no companions but the saints of the bible, nor any other light but the lamp of the word to guide his feet, his heaven-taught soul was ministerially furnished with as rich pasture for the sheep of christ, as awful ammunition for the terror and destruction of the enemies by which he and they were perpetually surrounded. the sphere of his mighty ministry was not bounded by his defence of the truth against the great and powerful. no! he was as rich a pastor, as terrible a warrior. he fed the sheep in the fattest pastures, while he destroyed the wolves on every side. nor will those pastures be dried up or lost until time, nations, and the churches of god shall be no more."--dr. cole's _pref. to luther on genesis_. his enemies and revilers. rome has never forgotten nor forgiven him. she sought his life while living, and she curses him in his grave. profited by his labors beyond what she ever could have been without him, she strains and chokes with anathemas upon his name and everything that savors of him. her children are taught from infancy to hate and abhor him as they hope for salvation. many are the false turns and garbled forms in which her writers hold up his words and deeds to revenge themselves on his memory. again and again the oft-answered and exploded calumnies are revived afresh to throw dishonor on his cause. even while the free peoples of the earth are making these grateful acknowledgments of the priceless boon that has come to them through his life and labors, press and platform hiss with stale vituperations from the old enemy. and a puling churchism outside of rome takes an ill pleasure in following after her to gather and retail this vomit of malignity. luther was but a man. no one claims that he was perfection. but if those who sought his destruction while he lived had had no greater faults than he, with better grace their modern representatives might indulge their genius for his defamation. at best, as we might suppose, it is the little men, the men of narrow range and narrow heart--men dwarfed by egotism, bigotry, and self-conceit--who see the most of these defects. nobler minds, contemplating him from loftier standpoints, observe but little of them, and even honor them above the excellencies of common men. "the proofs that he was in some things like other men," says lessing, "are to me as precious as the most dazzling of his virtues."[ ] and, with all, where is the gain or wisdom of blowing smoke upon a diamond? the sun itself has holes in it too large for half a dozen worlds like ours to fill, but wherein is that great luminary thereby unfitted to be the matchless centre of our system, the glorious source of day, and the sublime symbol of the son of god? if luther married a beautiful woman, the proofs of which do not appear, it is what every other honest man would do if it suited him and he were free to do it. if he broke his vows to get a wife, of which there is no evidence, when vows are taken by mistake, tending to dishonor god, work unrighteousness, and hinder virtuous example and proper life, they ought to be broken, the sooner the better. and, whatever else may be alleged to his discredit, and whoever may arise to heap scandal on his name, the grand facts remain that it was chiefly through his marvelous qualities, word, and work that the towering dominion of the papacy was humbled and broken for ever; that prophets and apostles were released from their prisons once more to preach and prophesy to men; that the church of the early times was restored to the bereaved world; that the human mind was set free to read and follow god's word for itself; that the masses of neglected and downtrodden humanity were made into populations of live and thinking beings; and that the nations of the earth have become repossessed of their "inalienable rights" of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." "and let the pope and priests their victor scorn, each fault reveal, each imperfection scan, and by their fell anatomy of hate his life dissect with satire's keenest edge; yet still may luther, with his mighty heart, defy their malice. far beyond _them_ soars the soul they slander. from his tomb there still comes forth a magic which appalls them by its power; and the brave monk who made the popedom rock champions a world to show his equal yet!" footnotes: [ ] "it was by some of these qualities which we are now apt to blame that luther was fitted for accomplishing the great work which he undertook. to rouse mankind when sunk in ignorance and superstition, and to encounter the rage of bigotry armed with power, required the utmost vehemence of zeal as well as temper daring to excess."--robertson's _charles v._ the founding of pennsylvania. i. the history and the men. it was in , just nine years after luther's birth, that the intrepid genoese, christopher columbus, under the patronage of ferdinand, king of spain, made the discovery of land on this side of the atlantic ocean. a few years later the distinguished florentine, americus vespucius, set foot on its more interior coasts, described their features, and imprinted his name on this western continent. but it was not until more than a century later that permanent settlements of civilized people upon these shores began to be made. during the early part of the seventeenth century several such settlements were effected. a company of english adventurers planted themselves on the banks of the james river and founded virginia ( ). the dutch of holland, impelled by the spirit of mercantile enterprise, established a colony on the hudson, and founded what afterward became the city and state of new york ( ). then a shipload of english puritans, flying from religious oppression, landed at plymouth rock and made the beginning of new england ( ). a little later lord baltimore founded a colony on the chesapeake and commenced the state of maryland ( ). but it was not until - that the first permanent settlement was made in what subsequently became the state of pennsylvania. movements in sweden. from the year to there was upon the throne of sweden one of the noblest of kings, a great champion of religious liberty, the lamented and ever-to-be-remembered gustavus adolphus. in his profound thinking to promote the glory of god and the good of men his attention rested on this vast domain of wild lands in america. he knew the sorrows and distresses which thousands all over europe were suffering from the constant and devastating religious wars, and the purpose was kindled in his heart to plant here a colony as the beginning of a general asylum for these homeless and persecuted people, and determined to foster the same by his royal protection and care. "to this end he sent forth letters patent, dated stockholm, d of july, , wherein all, both high and low, were invited to contribute something to the company according to their means. the work was completed in the diet of the following year ( ), when the estates of the realm gave their assent and confirmed the measure. those who took part in this company were: his majesty's mother, the queen-dowager christina, the prince john casimir, the royal council, the most distinguished of the nobility, the highest officers of the army, the bishops and other clergymen, together with the burgomasters and aldermen of the cities, as well as a large number of the people generally. for the management and working of the plan there were appointed an admiral, vice-admiral, chapman, under-chapman, assistants, and commissaries, also a body of soldiers duly officered."[ ] and a more beneficent, brilliant, and promising arrangement of the sort was perhaps never made. the devout king intended his grand scheme "for the honor of god," for the welfare of his subjects and suffering christians in general, and as a means "to extend the doctrines of christ among the heathen." but when everything was complete and in full progress to go into effect, king gustavus adolphus was called to join and lead the allied armies of the protestant kingdoms of germany against the endeavors of the papal powers to crush out the cause of evangelical christianity and free conscience.[ ] for the ensuing five years the attention and energies of sweden were preoccupied, first with the polish, and then with these wars, and the colonization scheme was interrupted. then came the famous battle of lützen, , bringing glorious victory over the gigantic wallenstein, but death to the victor, the royal adolphus.[ ] only a few days before that dreadful battle he spoke of his colonization plan, and commended it to the german people at nuremberg as "the jewel of his kingdom;" but with the king's death the company disbanded. we could almost wish that gustavus had lived to carry out his humane and magnificent proposals with reference to this colony as well as for europe; but his work was done. what america lost by his death she more than regained in the final success and secure establishment of the holy cause for which he sacrificed his life. footnotes: [ ] acrelius's _history_, p. . [ ] "when he now beheld that the cause of protestantism was menaced more seriously than ever throughout the whole of germany, he took the decisive step, and, formally declaring war against the emperor, he, on the th of june, , landed on the coast of pomerania with fifteen thousand swedes. as soon as he stepped upon shore he dropped on his knees in prayer, while his example was followed by his whole army. truly he had undertaken, with but small and limited means, a great and mighty enterprise." "the swedes, so steady and strict in their discipline, appeared as protecting angels, and as the king advanced the belief spread far and near throughout the land that he was sent from heaven as its preserver."--_history of germany_, by kohlrausch, pp. , . "bavaria and the tyrol excepted, every province throughout germany had battled for liberty of conscience, and yet the whole of germany, notwithstanding her universal inclination for the reformation, had been deceived in her hopes: a second imperial edict seemed likely to crush the few remaining privileges spared by the edict of restitution.... gustavus, urged by his sincere piety, resolved to take up arms in defence of protestantism and to free germany from the yoke imposed by the jesuits."--menzel's _history of germany_, vol. ii. pp. , . "the party of the catholics were carrying all before them, and everything seemed to promise that ferdinand (the roman catholic emperor) would become absolute through the whole of germany, and succeed in that scheme which he seemed to meditate, of entirely abolishing the protestant religion in the empire. but this miserable prospect, both of political and religious thraldom, was dissolved by the great gustavus adolphus being invited by the protestant princes of germany to espouse the cause of the reformed religion, being himself of that persuasion."--tytler's _univ. hist._, vol. ii. p. . [ ] the death of gustavus adolphus is thus described by kohlrausch: "the king spent the cold autumnal night in his carriage, and advised with his generals about the battle. the morning dawned, and a thick fog covered the entire plain; the troops were drawn up in battle-array, and the swedes sang, accompanied with trumpets and drums, luther's hymn, _ein feste burg ist unser gott_ ('a mighty fortress is our god'), together with the hymn composed by the king himself, _verzage nicht, du häuflein klein_ ('fear not the foe, thou little flock'). just after eleven o'clock, when the sun was emerging from behind the clouds, and after a short prayer, the king mounted his horse, placed himself at the head of the right wing--the left being commanded by bernard of weimar--and cried, 'now, onward! may our god direct us!--lord, lord! help me this day to fight for the glory of thy name!' and, throwing away his cuirass with the words, 'god is my shield!' he led his troops to the front of the imperialists, who were well entrenched on the paved road which leads from lützen to leipsic, and stationed in the deep trenches on either side. a deadly cannonade saluted the swedes, and many here met their death; but their places were filled by others, who leaped over the trench, and the troops of wallenstein retreated. "in the mean time, pappenheim came up with his cavalry from halle, and the battle was renewed with the utmost fury. the swedish infantry fled behind the trenches. to assist them, the king hastened to the spot with a company of horse, and rode in full speed considerably in advance to descry the weak points of the enemy; only a few of his attendants, and francis, duke of saxe-lauenberg, rode with him. his short-sightedness led him too near a squadron of imperial horse; he received a shot in his arm, which nearly precipitated him to the ground; and just as he was turning to be led away from the tumultuous scene he received a second shot in the back. with the exclamation, 'my god! my god!' he fell from his horse, which also was shot in the neck, and was dragged for some distance, hanging by the stirrup. the duke abandoned him, but his faithful page tried to raise him, when the imperial horsemen shot him also, killed the king, and completely plundered him." pappenheim was also mortally wounded, wallenstein retreated, and the victory was with the swedes, but their noble king was no more. the swedish proposal. the plan of this illustrious king was to found here upon the delaware a free state under his sovereign protection, where the laborer should enjoy the fruit of his toil, where the rights of conscience should be preserved inviolate, and which should be open to the whole protestant world, then and for long time engaged in bloody conflict with the papal powers for the maintenance of its existence. here all were to be secure in their persons, their property, and their religious convictions. it was to be a place of refuge and peace for the persecuted of all nations, of security for the honor of the wives and daughters of those fleeing from sword, fire, and rapine, and from homes made desolate by oppressive war. it was to be a land of universal liberty for all classes, the soil of which was never to be burdened with slaves.[ ] and in all the colonies of america there was not a more thoroughly digested system for the practical realization of these ideas than that which the great gustavus adolphus had thus arranged. nor did it altogether die with his death. his mantle fell upon one of the best and greatest of men. axel oxenstiern, his friend and prime minister, and his successor in the administration of the affairs of the kingdom, was as competent as he was zealous to fulfill the wise plans and ideas of the slain king, not only with reference to sweden and europe, but also with regard to the contemplated colony in america. having taken the matter into his own hands, on the th of april, , only a few months after gustavus's death, oxenstiern renewed the movement which had been laid aside, and repeated the offer to germany and other countries, inviting general co-operation in the noble enterprise. peter minuit, a member of a distinguished family of rhenish prussia, who had been for years the able director and president of the dutch mercantile establishment on the hudson, presented himself in sweden, and entered into the matter with great energy and enthusiasm. and by the end of or early in two ships were seen entering and ascending the delaware, freighted with the elements and nucleus of the new state, such as gustavus had projected. these ships, under minuit, landed their passengers but a few miles south of where philadelphia now stands, and thus made the first beginning of what has since become the great and happy commonwealth of pennsylvania. this was _six years before penn was born_. footnotes: [ ] the description of the features of this plan is taken from geijer's _svenska folkets historia_, vol. iii. p. , given by dr. reynolds in his introduction to israel acrelius's _history of new sweden_, published by the historical society of pennsylvania. it was first propounded by gustavus adolphus in . also referred to in _argonautica gustaviana_, pp. and . was penn aware of these plans? how far william penn was illuminated and influenced by the ideas of the great and wise gustavus adolphus in reference to the founding of a free state in america as an asylum for the persecuted and suffering people of god in the old world, is nowhere told; but there is reason to believe that he knew of them, and took his own plans from them. a few facts bearing on the point may here be noted. one peculiarly striking is, that the same plan and principles with reference to such a colonial state which penn brought hither in the _welcome_ in were already matured and widely propounded by the illustrious swedish king more than half a century before they practically entered penn's mind. another is, that these proposals and principles were generally promulgated throughout europe--first by gustavus and those associated with him in the matter, and then again by oxenstiern, in germany, holland, and other countries. still another is, that in penn made a special tour of three months through holland and various parts of germany, visiting and conferring with many of the most pious and devoted people, including distinguished men and women, and clergy and laity of high standing, information, and influence. he made considerable stay in frankfort, where he says both calvinists and lutherans received him with gladness of heart. he visited mayence, worms, mannheim, mulheim, düsseldorf, herwerden, embaden, bremen, etc., etc., concerning which the editor of his _life and writings_ says he had "interesting interviews with many persons eminent for their talents, learning, or social position." among them were such as elizabeth, princess palatine, niece of charles i. of england and the daughter of the king of bohemia, the special friend of gustavus adolphus, who died of horror on hearing that gustavus was slain; anna maria, countess of hornes; the countess and earl of falkenstein and brück; the president of the council of state at embaden; the earl of donau, and the like; among all of which it is hardly possible that he should have failed to meet with the proposals which had gone out over all protestant europe from the throne of sweden. nor is there any evidence that william penn had thought of founding a free christian state in america until immediately after his return to england from this tour on the continent. furthermore, the plans of gustavus respecting his projected colony on the delaware were well understood in official circles in england itself, especially in london, from . john oxenstiern, brother of the great chancellor, was at that time swedish ambassador in london, and in that year he obtained from king charles i. a renunciation and cession to sweden of all claims of the english to the country on the delaware growing out of the rights of first discovery, and for the very purposes of this colonial free state and asylum first projected by the swedish king. the swedes in advance of penn. we are left to our own inferences from these facts. but, however much or little penn may have been directly influenced and guided by what gustavus adolphus had conceived and elaborated on the subject, the wise and noble conception which he brought with him for practical realization in was known to the european peoples for more than fifty years before he laid hold on it. the same had also been one of the chief sources of the inspiration of lord baltimore in the founding of the colony of maryland, of which penn was not ignorant. and the same, not unknown to him, had already begun to be realized here in what is now called pennsylvania full forty-four years before his arrival. shipload after shipload of sturdy and devoted people, mostly swedes, animated with the same grand ideas, had here been landed. and so successfully had they battled with the perils and hardships of the wilderness, and so justly had they treated and arranged to dwell in peace and love with the wild inhabitants of the forests, that when penn came he found everything prepared to his hand. the swedes alone already numbered about one thousand strong. they had conquered the wild woods, built them homes, and opened plantations; and "the eye of the stranger could begin to gaze with interest upon the signs of public improvement, ever regularly advancing, from the region of wilmington to that of philadelphia." when penn landed he found a town and court-house at new castle, and a town and place of public assemblage at upland, and a christian and free people in possession of the territory, with whom it was necessary for him to treat before his charter could avail for the planting of his colony. the land to which the swedes had acquired title (by england's release to sweden of all claim from right of discovery, by charter from sweden, by purchase from the indians, first under minuit, the first governor, and then under his successor, governor printz, and by other purchases or agreements) was the west bank of the delaware river from cape henlopen to trenton falls, and thence westward to the great fall in the susquehanna, near the mouth of the conewaga creek, which included nearly the whole of eastern pennsylvania and delaware. the fortunes of war, in europe and between the colonies, in course of time complicated the titles to one and another portion of this territory, but the swedes and dutch occupied and held the most prominent parts of it by right of actual possession when and after penn's charter was granted. penn's charter and arrival. but when penn arrived he brought with him letters patent from charles ii., king of england, to this same district of country and the wilds indefinitely beyond it, having also obtained from his friend, the king's brother, the duke of york, full releases of the claims vested in him to the "lower counties," which now form the state of delaware. penn was accompanied by from sixty to seventy colonists--all that survived the scourge which visited them in their passage across the sea. he landed first at new castle, of which the dutch of new york had by conquest obtained possession. to them he made known his grants and his plans, and succeeded in securing their acquiescence in them. thence he came to upland (chester), the head-quarters of the swedes, who "received their new fellow-citizens with great friendliness, carried up their goods and furniture from the ships, and entertained them in their own houses without charge." his proposals with regard to the establishment of a united commonwealth they also received with much favor. and immediately thereupon he convened a general assembly of the citizens, which sat for three days, by which an act was passed for the consolidation of the various interests and parties on the ground, a code of general regulations adopted, and the necessary features of a common government enacted; all of which together formed the basis of our present commonwealth. how pennsylvania was named. the name which penn had chosen for the territory of his grant was _sylvania_, but the king prefixed the name of penn and called it _penn's_ silvania (_penn's woods_), in honor of the recipient's father, sir william penn, a distinguished officer in the british navy. penn sought to have the title changed so as to leave his own name out, as he thought it savored too much of personal vanity; but his efforts did not avail. and thus our great old commonwealth took the name of _pennsylvania_, and the city of philadelphia was laid out and named by penn himself as its capital. the men of those times. in dwelling upon the founding of our happy commonwealth it is pleasant to contemplate how enlightened and exalted were the men whom providence employed for the performance of this important work. many are apt to think ours the age of culminated enlightenment, dignity, wisdom, and intelligence, and look upon the fathers of two and three hundred years ago as mere pigmies, just emerging from an era of barbarism and ignorance, not at all to be compared with the proud wiseacres of our day. never was there a greater mistake. the shallowness and flippancy of the leaders and politicians of this last quarter of the nineteenth century show them but little more than school-boys compared with the sturdy, sober-minded, deep-principled, dignified, and grand-spirited men who discovered and opened this continent and laid the foundations of our country's greatness. and those who were most concerned in the founding of our own commonwealth suffer in no respect in comparison with the greatest and the best. gustavus adolphus. i have named the illustrious gustavus adolphus as the man, above all, who first conceived, sketched, and propounded the grand idea of such a state. what other colonies reached only through varied experiments and gradual developments, pennsylvania had clear and mature, in ideal and in fact, from the very earliest beginning; and the royal heart and brain of sweden were its source. gustavus adolphus was born a prince in the regular line of sweden's ancient kings. his grandfather, gustavus vasa, was a man of thorough culture, excellent ability, and sterling moral qualities. when in germany he was an earnest listener to luther's preaching, became his friend and correspondent, a devout confessor and patron of the evangelic faith, and the wise establisher of the reformation in his kingdom. adolphus inherited all his grandfather's high qualities. he was the idol of his father, charles ix., and was devoutly trained from earliest childhood in the evangelic faith, educated in thorough princely style, familiarized with governmental affairs from the time he was a boy, and developed into an exemplary, wise, brave, and devoted christian man and illustrious king. he ascended the throne when but seventeen years of age, extricated his country from many internal and external troubles, organized for it a new system, and became the hero-sovereign of his age. he was one of the greatest of men, in cabinet and in field as well as in faith and humble devotion. he was a broad-minded statesman and patriot, one of the most beloved of rulers, and a philanthropist of the purest order and most comprehensive views. that evangelical christianity which luther and his coadjutors exhumed from the superincumbent rubbish of the middle ages was dearer to him than his throne or his life. the pure gospel of christ was to him the most precious of human possessions. for it he lived, and for it he died. one of his deep-souled hymns, sung along with luther's _ein feste burg_ at the head of his armies in his campaigns for christian liberty, has its place in our church-book to-day. and the bright peculiar star which appeared in the heavens at the time he was born fitly heralded his royal career. cut off in the midst of a succession of victories in the thirty-eighth year of his age, the influence of his mind nevertheless served to give another constitution to the germanic peoples, established the right and power of evangelical christianity to be and to be unmolested on the earth, and confirmed a new element in the development and progress of the european races and of mankind. with the loftiest conceptions of human life, a thorough acquaintance with the agencies which govern the world, a mind in all respects in thorough subjection to an enlightened christian conscience, a magnanimity and liberality of sentiment far in advance of his age, and an untarnished devotion which marked his history to its very end, his name stands at the head of the list of illustrious christian kings and human benefactors.[ ] footnotes: [ ] count galeazzo gualdo, a venetian roman catholic, who spent some years in both the imperial and the swedish armies, says of gustavus adolphus that "he was tall, stout, and of such truly royal demeanor that he universally commanded veneration, admiration, love, and fear. his hair and beard were of a light-brown color, his eye large, but not far-sighted. eloquence dwelt upon his tongue. he spoke german, the native language of his mother, the swedish, the latin, the french, and the italian languages, and his discourse was agreeable and lively. there never was a general served with so much cheerfulness and devotion as he. he was of an affable and friendly disposition, readily expressing commendation, and noble actions were indelibly fixed upon his memory; on the other hand, excessive politeness and flattery he hated, and if any person approached him in that way he never trusted him." axel oxenstiern. axel oxenstiern, his friend, companion, and prime minister, was of like mind and character with himself. he was high-born, religiously trained, and thoroughly educated in both theology and law in the best schools which the world then afforded. he was sweden's greatest and wisest counselor and diplomatist, liberal-minded, true-hearted, dignified, and devout. in religion, in patriotism, in earnest doing for the profoundest interests of man, he was one with his illustrious king. he negotiated the peace of kmered with denmark, the peace of stolbowa with russia, and the armistice with poland. he accompanied his king in the campaigns in germany, having charge of all diplomatic affairs and the devising of ways and means for the support of the army in the field, whilst the king commanded it. he won no victories of war, but he was a choice spirit in creating the means by which some of the most valuable of such victories were achieved, and conducted those victories to permanent peace. when gustavus adolphus fell at lützen a sacrifice to religious liberty, the whole administration of the kingdom was placed in oxenstiern's hands. the congress of foreign princes at heilbronn elected him to the headship of their league against the papal power of austria; and it was his wisdom and heroism alone which held the league together unto final triumph. bauer, torstensson, and von wrangle were the flaming swords which finally overwhelmed that power, but the brain which brought the fearful thirty years' war to a final close, and established the evangelical cause upon its lasting basis of security by the peace of westphalia ( ), was that of axel oxenstiern, the very man who sent to pennsylvania its original colonists as the founders of a free state. peter minuit. a kindred spirit was peter minuit, the man whom oxenstiern selected and commissioned to accompany these first colonists to the west bank of the delaware, and to act as their president and governor. he too was a high-born, cultured, large-minded christian man. he was an honored deacon in the walloon church at wesel. removing to holland, his high qualities led to his selection by the dutch west india company as the fittest man to be the first governor and director-general of the dutch colonies on the hudson. his great efficiency and public success in that capacity made him the subject of jealousies and accusations, resulting in his recall after five or six years of the most effective administration of the affairs of those colonies. oxenstiern had the breadth and penetration to understand his real worth, and appointed him the first governor of the new sweden which since has become the great state of pennsylvania. he lived less than five years in this new position, and died in fort christina, which he built and held during his last years of service on earth. he was a wise, laborious, and far-seeing man, consecrated with all his powers to the formation of a free commonwealth on this then wild territory. his name has largely sunk away from public attention, as the work of the swedes in general in the founding and fashioning of our commonwealth; but he and they deserve far better than has been awarded them. a few years ago ( ) some movement was for the first time made to erect a suitable monument to the memory of minuit. surely the founder of the greatest city in this western world, and of the colonial possessions of two european nations, and the first president and governor of the two greatest states in the american union, ranks among the great historic personages of his period; and his high qualities, noble spirit, and valuable services demand for him a grateful recognition which has been far too slow in coming. there is a debt owing to his name and memory which new york, pennsylvania, and the american people have not yet duly discharged. and to these grand men, first of all, are we under obligation of everlasting thanks for our free and happy old commonwealth. william penn. but without william penn to reinforce and more fully execute the noble plans, ideas, and beginnings which went before him, things perhaps never would have come to the fortunate results which he was the honored instrument in bringing about. this man, so renowned in the history of our state, and so specially honored by the peculiar society of which he was a zealous apostle, was respectably descended. his grandfather was a captain in the english navy, and his father became a distinguished naval officer, who reached high promotion and gave his son the privileges of a good education. penn was for three years a student in the university of oxford, until expelled, with others, for certain offensive non-conformities. he was not what we would call religiously trained, but he was endowed with a strong religious nature, even bordering on fanaticism, so that he needed only the application of the match to set his whole being aglow and active with the profoundest zeal, whether wise or otherwise. and that match was early applied. when england had reached the summit of delirium under her usurping protector, oliver cromwell, there arose, among many other sects full of enthusiastic self-assertion, that of the quakers, who were chiefly characterized by a profound religious, and oft fanatical, opposition to the established church, as well as to the crown. coming in contact with one of their most zealous preachers, young penn was inflamed with their spirit and became a vigorous propagator of their particular style of devotion. as the quaker tenets respected the state as well as religion, the bold avowal of them brought him into collision with the laws, and several times into prison and banishment. but, so far from intimidating him, this only the more confirmed him in his convictions and fervency. by his familiarity with able theologians, such as dr. owen and bishop tillotson, as well as from his own studies of the scriptures, he was deeply grounded in the main principles of the evangelic faith. indeed, he was in many things, in his later life, much less a quaker than many who glory in his name, and all his sons after him found their religious home in the church of england, which, to quakers generally, was a very babylon. but he was an honest-minded, pure, and cultured christian believer, holding firmly to the inward elements of the orthodox faith in god and christ, in revelation and eternal judgment, in the rights of man and the claims of justice. if some of his friends and representatives did not deal as honorably with the swedes in respect to their prior titles to their improved lands as right and charity would require, it is not to be set down to his personal reproach. and his zeal for his sect and his genuine devotion to god and religious liberty, together with a large-hearted philanthropy, were the springs which moved him to seize the opportunity which offered in the settlement of his deceased father's claim on the government to secure a grant of territory and privilege to form a free state in america--first for his own, and then for all other persecuted people. an estimate of penn. it may be that penn has been betimes a little overrated. he has, and deserves, a high place in the history of our commonwealth, but he was not the real founder of it; for its foundations were laid years before he was born and more than forty years before he received his charter. he founded pennsylvania only as americus vespucius discovered america. neither was he the author of those elements of free government, equal rights, and religious liberty which have characterized our commonwealth. they were the common principles of luther and the reformation, and were already largely embodied for this very territory[ ] long before penn's endeavors, as also, in measure, in the roman catholic colony of maryland from the same source. nor was he, in his own strength, possessed of so much wise forethought and profound legislative and executive ability as that with which he is sometimes credited. but he was a conscientious, earnest, and god-fearing man, cultured by education and grace, gifted with admirable address, sincere and philanthropic in his aims, and guided and impelled by circumstances and a peculiar religious zeal which providence overruled to ends far greater than his own intentions or thoughts. footnotes: [ ] see sketch of the plan of gustavus adolphus for his colony, page , and the instructions given to governor printz in . penn and the indians. what is called penn's particular policy toward the indians, and the means of his successes in that regard, existed in practical force scores of years before he arrived. his celebrated treaties with them, as far as they were fact, were but continuations and repetitions between them and the english, which had long before been made between them and the swedes, who did more for these barbarian peoples than he, and who helped him in the matter more than he helped himself. we are not fully informed respecting all the first instructions given to governor minuit when he came hither with pennsylvania's original colony in - , but there is every reason to infer that they strictly corresponded to those given to his successor, governor printz, five years afterward, on his appointment in , about which there can be no question. minuit entered into negotiations with the indians the very first thing on his landing, and purchased from them, as the rightful proprietors, all the land on the western side of the river from henlopen to trenton falls; a deed for which was regularly drawn up, to which the indians subscribed their hands and marks. posts were also driven into the ground as landmarks of this treaty, which were still visible in their places sixty years afterward. in the appointment and commission of governor printz it was commanded him to "bear in mind the articles of contract entered into with the wild inhabitants of the country as its rightful lords." "the wild nations bordering on all other sides the governor shall understand how to treat with all humanity and respect, that no violence, or wrong be done them; but he shall rather at every opportunity exert himself that the same wild people may gradually be instructed in the truths and worship of the christian religion, and in other ways brought to civilization and good government, and in this manner properly guided. especially shall he seek to gain their confidence, and impress upon their minds that neither he, the governor, nor his people and subordinates, are come into those parts to do them any wrong or injury." this policy was not a thing of mere coincidence. it was the express stipulation and command of the throne of sweden, august , , which was two years before william penn was born; and "this policy was steadily pursued and adhered to by the swedes during the whole time of their continuance in america, as the governors of the territory of which they had thus acquired the possession; and the consequences were of the most satisfactory character. they lived in peace with the indians, and received no injuries from them. the indians respected them, and long after the swedish power had disappeared from the shores of the delaware they continued to cherish its memory and speak of it with confidence and affection."[ ] governor printz arrived in this country in , and with him came rev. john campanius as chaplain and pastor of the swedish colony. his grandson, thomas campanius holm, many years after published numerous items put on record by the elder campanius, in which it appears that the commands to printz respecting the indians were very scrupulously carried out. according to these records, the indians were very familiar at the house of the elder campanius, and he did much to teach and christianize them. "he generally succeeded in making them understand that there is one lord god, self-existent and one in three persons; how the same god made the world, and made man, from whom all other men have descended; how adam afterward disobeyed, sinned against his creator, and involved all his descendants in condemnation; how god sent his only-begotten son jesus christ into the world, who was born of the virgin mary and suffered for the saving of men; how he died upon the cross, and was raised again the third day; and, lastly, how, after forty days, he ascended into heaven, whence he will return at a future day to judge the living and the dead," etc. and so much interest did they take in these instructions, and seemed so well disposed to embrace christianity, that campanius was induced to study and master their language, that he might the more effectually teach them the religion of christ. he also translated into the indian language the catechism of luther, perhaps the very first book ever put into the indian tongue. campanius began his work of evangelizing these wild people four years before eliot, who is sometimes called "the morning star of missionary enterprise," but who first commenced his labors in new england only in . hence dr. clay remarks that "the swedes may claim the honor of having been the first missionaries among the indians, at least in pennsylvania."[ ] "it was, _in fact, the swedes who inaugurated the peaceful policy of william penn_. this was not an accidental circumstance in the swedish policy, but was deliberately adopted and always carefully observed."[ ] when mr. rising became governor of the swedish colony he invited ten indian chiefs, or kings, to a friendly conference with him. it was held at tinicum, on the delaware, june , , when the governor saluted them, in the name of the swedish queen, with assurances of every kindness toward them, and proposed to them a firm renewal of the old friendship. campanius has given a minute account of this conference, and recites the speech in which one of the chiefs, named naaman, testified how good the swedes had been to them; that the swedes and indians had been in the time of governor printz as one body and one heart; that they would henceforward be as one head, like the calabash, which has neither rent nor seam, but one piece without a crack; and that in case of danger to the swedes they would ever serve and defend them. it was at the same time further arranged and agreed that if any trespasses were committed by any of their people upon the property of the swedes, the matter should be investigated by men chosen from both sides, and the person found guilty "should be punished for it as a warning to others."[ ] this occurred when william penn was but ten years of age, and twenty-eight years before his arrival in america. and upon the subject of the help which the swedes rendered to penn in his dealings with these people in the long after years, acrelius writes: "the proprietor ingratiated himself with the indians. the swedes acted as his interpreters, especially captain lars (lawrence) kock, who was a great favorite among the indians. he was sent to new york to buy goods suitable for traffic. he did all he could to give them a good opinion of their new ruler" (p. ); and it was by means of the aid and endeavors of the swedes, more than by any influence of his own, that penn came to the standing with these people to which he attained, and on which his fame in that regard rests. footnotes: [ ] introduction to acrelius's _history_. [ ] _swedish annals_, p. . [ ] dr. reynolds's _introduction to acrelius_, p. . [ ] see acrelius's _history_, pp. , , and clay's _swedish annals_, pp. , . penn's work. but still, as a man, a colonist, a governor, and a friend of the race, we owe to william penn great honor and respect, and his arrival here is amply worthy of our grateful commemoration. the location and framing of this goodly city, and a united and consolidated pennsylvania established finally in its original principles of common rights and common freedom, are his lasting monument. if he was not the spring of our colonial existence, he was its reinforcement by a strong and fortunate stream, which more fully determined the channel of its history. if the doctrine of liberty of conscience and religion, the principles of toleration and common rights, and the embodying of them in a free state open to all sufferers for conscience' sake, did not originate with him, he performed a noble work and contributed a powerful influence toward their final triumph and permanent establishment on this territory. and his career, taken all in all, connects his name with an illustrious service to the cause of freedom, humanity, and even christianity, especially in its more practical and ethical bearings. the greatness of faith. such, then, were the men most concerned in founding and framing our grand old commonwealth. they were men of faith, men of thorough culture, men of mark by birth and station, men who had learned to grapple with the great problem of human rights, human happiness, human needs, and human relations to heaven and earth. they believed in god, in the revelation of god, in the gospel of christ, in the responsibility of the soul to its maker, and in the demands of a living charity toward god and all his creatures. and their religious faith and convictions constituted the fire which set them in motion and sustained and directed their exertions for the noble ends which it is ours so richly to enjoy. had they not been the earnest christians that they were, they never could have been the men they proved themselves, nor ever have thought the thoughts or achieved the glorious works for ever connected with their names. we are apt to contemplate christian faith and devotion only in its more private and personal effects on individual souls, the light and peace it brings to the true believer, and the purification and hope it works in the hearts of those who receive it, whilst we overlook its force upon the great world outside and its shapings of the facts and currents of history. we think of luther wrestling with his sins, despairing and dying under the impossible task of working out for himself an availing righteousness, and rejoice with him in the light and peace which came to his agonized soul through the grand and all-conditioning doctrine of justification by simple faith in an all-sufficient redeemer; but we do not always realize how the breaking of that evangelic principle into his earnest heart was the incarnation of a power which divided the christian ages, brought the world over the summit of the water-shed, and turned the gravitation of the laboring nations toward a new era of liberty and happiness. and so we refer to the spiritual training of a gustavus adolphus and an axel oxenstiern in the simple truths of luther's catechism and the restored gospel, and to the opening of the heart of a william penn to the exhortations of friend loe to forsake the follies of the corrupt world and seek his portion with the pure in heaven, and mark the unfoldings of their better nature which those blessed instructions wrought; whilst we fail to note that therein lay the springs and germs which have given us our grand commonwealth and established for us the free institutions of church and state in which we so much glory and rejoice. ah, yes; there is greatness and good and blessing untold for man and for the world in the personal hearing, believing, and heeding of the word and testimony of god. no man can tell to what new impulses in human history, or to what new currents of benediction and continents of national glory, it may lead for souls in the school of christ to open themselves meekly to the inflowings of heaven's free grace. it was the sowing of god's truth and the planting of god's spirit in these men's hearts that most of all grew for us our country and our blessed liberties. ii. the principles enthroned. the religious element in man is the deepest and most powerful in his nature. it is that also which asserts and claims the greatest independence from external constraints. it is therefore the height of unwisdom, not to say tyranny, for earthly magistracy to interfere by penalty and sword with the religious opinions and movements of the people, so long as civil authority and public order are not invaded and the rights of others are not infringed. in such cases it is always best to combat only with the word of god. if of men it will come to naught, and if of god it cannot be suppressed. reaction against wrongs done to truth and right is sure to come, and will push through to revolution and victory in spite of all unrighteous power. it is vain for any human governments to think to chain up the honest convictions of the soul. god made it free, and sooner or later it will be free, in spite of everything. it was largely the weight and current of such reaction against arbitrary interference with the religious convictions and free conscience of man that furnished the impulse to the original peopling of our state and country, and gave shape to the constitution and laws of this commonwealth for the last two hundred years. nor will our inquiries and showings with regard to the founding of pennsylvania be complete without something more respecting the leading principles which governed in that fortunate movement. our state the product of faith. i. it is a matter of indisputable fact that the founding of our commonwealth was one of the direct fruits of the revived gospel of christ. but a little searching into the influences most active in the history is required to show that it was religious conviction and faith, more than anything else, that had to do with the case. changes had come. luther had found the bible chained, and set it free. apostolic christianity had reappeared, and was re-uttering itself with great power among the nations. its quickening truths and growing victories were undermining the gigantic usurpations and falsehoods which for ages had been oppressing our world. conscience, illuminated and revived by the word of god, had risen up to assert its rights of free judgment and free worship, and resentful power had drawn the sword to put it down. continental europe was being deluged with blood and devastated by relentless religious wars to crush out the evangelic faith, whose confessors held up the bible over all popes and secular powers, and would not consent to part with their inalienable charter from the throne of heaven to worship god according to his word. and amid these woeful struggles the good providence of the almighty opened up to the attention of the nations the vast new territories of this western world. from various motives, indeed, were the several original colonies of america founded. some of the colonists came from a spirit of adventure. some came for territorial aggrandizement and national enrichment. some came as mercantile speculators. and each of these considerations may have entered somewhat into the most of these colonization schemes. but it was mainly flight from oppression on account of religious convictions which influenced the first colony of new england, and a still freer religious motive induced the colonization of pennsylvania. all the men most concerned in the matter were profoundly religious men and thorough and active believers in revived christianity; and it was most of all from these religious feelings and impulses that they acted in the case. gustavus and the swedes. the first presentation to the king of sweden, by william usselinx, touching the planting of a colony on the west bank of the delaware, looked to the establishment of a trading company with unlimited trading privileges; and the argument for it was the great source of revenue it would be to the kingdom. but when gustavus adolphus entered into the subject and gave his royal favor to it, quite other motives and considerations came in to determine his course. as the history records, and quite aside from the prospect of establishing his power in these parts of the world, "the king, whose zeal for the honor of god was not less ardent than for the welfare of his subjects, _availed himself of this opportunity to extend the doctrines of christ among the heathen_,"[ ] and to this end granted letters patent, in which it was further provided that a free state should be formed, guaranteeing all personal rights of property, honor, and religion, and forming an asylum and place of security for the persecuted people of all nations. and when these gracious intentions of the king were revived after his death, the same ideas and provisions were carefully maintained, specially stipulating ( ) for every human respect toward the indians--to wit, that the governors of the colony should deal justly with them as the rightful lords of the land, and exert themselves at every opportunity "that the same wild people may be instructed in the truths and worship of the christian religion, and in other ways brought to civilization and good government, and in this manner properly guided;" ( ) "above all things to consider and see to it that divine service be duly maintained and zealously performed according to the unaltered augsburg confession;" and ( ) to protect those of a different confession in the free exercise of their own forms.[ ] it is plain, therefore, that the spirit of religion, the spirit of evangelical missions, the spirit of christian charity, and the spirit of devotion to the protection of religious liberty and freedom of conscience were the dominating motives on the part of those who founded the first permanent settlement on the territory of pennsylvania. footnotes: [ ] _history of new sweden_, by israel acrelius, p. . [ ] rehearsed in the commission to governor printz, , sections and . the feelings of william penn. bating somewhat the missionary character of the enterprise, the same may be said of william penn and his great reinforcement to what had thus been successfully begun long before his time. he was himself a very zealous preacher of religion, though more in the line of protest against the world and the existing church than in the line of positive christianity and the conversion and evangelization of the heathen. he had himself been a great sufferer for his religious convictions, along with the people whose cause he had espoused and made his own. his controlling desire was to honor and glorify god in the founding of a commonwealth in which those of his way of thinking might have a secure home of their own and worship their creator as best agreed with their feelings and convictions, without being molested or disturbed; offering at the same time the same precious boon to others in like constraints willing to share the lot of his endeavors. the motives of charles ii. in granting his charter were, first of all, to discharge a heavy pecuniary claim of penn against the government on account of his father; next, to honor the memory and merits of the late admiral penn; and, finally, at the same time, to "favor william penn in his laudable efforts to enlarge the british empire, to promote the trade and prosperity of the kingdom, and to reduce the savage nations by just and gentle measures to the love of civilized life and the christian religion." penn's idea, as stated by his memorialist, was "to obtain the grant of a territory on the west side of the delaware, in which he might not only furnish an asylum to friends (quakers), and others who were persecuted on account of their religious persuasion, but might erect a government upon principles approaching much nearer the standard of evangelical purity than any which had been previously raised." his own account of the matter is: "for my country i eyed the lord in obtaining it; and more was i drawn inward to look to him, and to owe it to his hand and power, than to any other way. i have so obtained it, and desire to keep it, that i may not be unworthy of his love, but do that which may answer his kind providence and serve his truth and people, that an example may be set up to the nations. there may be room there, though not here, for such an holy experiment." "i do therefore desire the lord's wisdom to guide me and those that may be concerned with me, that we may do the thing that is truly wise and just." and with these aims and this spirit he invited people to join him, came to the territory which had been granted him, conferred with the swedish and dutch colonists already on the ground, and together with them established the commonwealth of pennsylvania. recognition of the divine being. ii. accordingly, also, the chief corner-stone in the constitutional fabric of our state was the united official acknowledgment of the being and supremacy of one eternal and ever-living god, the judge of all men and the lord of nations. the self-existence and government of almighty god is the foundation of all things. nothing _is_ without him. and the devout and dutiful recognition of him and the absolute supremacy of his laws are the basis and chief element of everything good and stable in human affairs. he who denies this or fails in its acknowledgment is so far practically self-stultified, beside himself, outside the sphere of sound rationality, and incapable of rightly understanding or directing himself or anything else. nor could those who founded our commonwealth have been moved as they were, or achieved the happy success they did, had it not been for their clear, profound, and practical acknowledgment of the being and government of that good and almighty one who fills immensity and eternity, and from whom, and by whom, and to whom are all things. some feel and act as if it were an imbecility, or a thing only for the weak, timid, and helpless, to be concerned about an almighty god. but greater, braver, and more manly men did not then exist than those who were most prominent and active in founding and framing our commonwealth; and of all men then making themselves felt in the affairs of our world, they were among the most honest and devout in the practical confession of the eternal being and providence of jehovah. the great gustavus adolphus and the equally great axel oxenstiern held and confessed from their deepest souls and in all their thoughts and doings that there is an eternal god, infinite in power, wisdom, and goodness, the creator, preserver, and judge of all things, visible and invisible, and that on him and his favor alone all good and prosperity in this world and the next depends. this they ever formally and devoutly set forth in all their state papers and in all their undertakings and doings, whether as men or as rulers. the sound of songs and prayers to this almighty and ever-present god was heard at every sunrise through all the army of gustavus in the field, as well as in the tent and closet of its great commander. and all the instructions given to the governors of the colony on the delaware were meekly conditioned to the will of god, with specific emphasis on the provision: "above all things, shall the governor consider and see to it that a true and due worship, becoming honor, laud, and praise be paid to the most high in all things." the same is true of william penn. from early life he was always a zealous exhorter to the devout worship of almighty god as the only illuminator and helper of men. what he averred in his letter to the indians was the great root-principle of his life: "there is a great god and power, which hath made the world and all things therein, to whom you and i and all people owe their being and well-being, and to whom you and i must one day give an account for all that we have done in this world." and what was thus wrought into the texture of his being he also wove into the original constitution of our state. enactments on the subject. all the articles of government and regulation ordained by the first general assembly, held at upland (chester) from the seventh to the tenth day of december, , were fundamentally grounded on this express "whereas, the glory of almighty god and the good of mankind is the reason and end of government, and therefore government itself is a valuable ordinance of god; and forasmuch as it is principally desired to make and establish such laws as shall best preserve true christian and civil liberty, in opposition to all unchristian, licentious, and unjust practices, whereby god may have his due, cæsar his due, and the people their due, from tyranny and oppression on the one side, and insolence and licentiousness on the other; so that the best and firmest foundation may be laid for the present and future happiness of both the governor and the people of this province and their posterity;" for it was deemed and believed on all hands that neither permanence nor happiness, enduring order nor prosperity, could come from any other principle than that of the recognition of the supremacy and laws of him from whom all things proceed and on whom all creatures depend. on this wise also ran the very first of the sixty-one laws ordained by that assembly: "almighty god being the lord of conscience, father of lights, and the author as well as object of all divine knowledge, faith, and worship, who alone can enlighten the mind and convince the understanding of people in due reverence to his sovereignty over the souls of mankind," the rights of citizenship, protection, and liberty should be to every person, then or thereafter residing in this province, "who shall confess one almighty god to be the creator, upholder, and ruler of the world, and profess himself obliged in conscience to live peaceably and justly under the civil government;" provided, further, that no person antagonizing this confession, or refusing to profess the same, or convicted of unsober or dishonest conversation, should ever hold office in this commonwealth. and so entirely did this, and what else was then and there enacted and ordained, fall in with the teachings, feelings, and beliefs of the hardy and devoted swedish lutherans, who had here been professing and fulfilling the same for two scores of years preceding, that they not only joined in the making of these enactments, but sent a special deputation to the governor formally to assure him that, on these principles and the faithful administration of them, they would love, serve, and obey him with all they possessed. importance of this principle. nor can it ever be known in this world how much of the success, prosperity, and happy conservatism which have marked this commonwealth in all the days and years since, have come directly from this planting of it on the grand corner-stone of all national stability, order, and happiness. surely, a widely different course and condition of things would have come but for this secure anchoring of the ship on the everlasting rock. and a thousand pities it is that the influence of french atheism was allowed to exclude so wholesome a principle from the declaration of our national independence and from our national constitution. whilst such recognition of jehovah's supremacy and government abides in living force in the hearts of the people, the absence of its official formulation may be of no material disadvantage; but for the better preservation of it in men's minds, and for the obstruction of the insidious growth of what strikes at the foundation of all government and order, it would have been well had the same been put in place as the grand corner-stone of our whole national fabric, as it was in the original organization of the commonwealth of pennsylvania, and kept in both clear and unchangeable for ever. we might then hope for better things than are indicated by the present drift, and the outlook for those to come after us would be less dark and doubtful than it is. but, since weakenings and degeneration in these respects have come into the enactments of public power, it is all the more needful for every true and patriotic citizen to be earnest and firm in witnessing for god and his everlasting laws, that the people may be better than the later expressions of their state documents. the example of the fathers makes appeal to the consciences of their children not to let go from our hearts and lives the deep and abiding recognition and confession of that almighty governor of all things from whose righteous tribunal no one living can escape, and before whom no contemner of his authority can stand. religious liberty. iii. another great and precious principle enthroned in the founding of our commonwealth was that of religious liberty. one of the saddest chapters in human history is that of persecution on account of religious convictions--the imposition of penalties, torture, and death by the sword of government on worthy people because of their honest opinions of duty to almighty god. for the punishment of the lawless, the wicked, and the intractable, and for the praise, peace, and protection of them that do well, the civil magistrate is truly the authorized representative of god, and fails in his office and duty where the powers he wields are not studiously and vigorously exercised to these ends. but god hath reserved to himself, and hath not committed to any creature hands, the power and dominion to interfere with realm of conscience. as he alone can instruct and govern it, and as its sphere is that of the recognition of his will and law and the soul's direct amenability to his judgment-bar, it is a gross usurpation and a wicked presumption for any other authority or power to undertake to force obedience contrary to the soul's persuasion of what its maker demands of it as a condition of his favor. it is a principle of human action and obligation recognized in both testaments, that when the requirements of human authority conflict with those of the father of spirits we must obey god rather than man. the rights of conscience and the rights of god thus coincide, and to trample on the one is to deny the other. and when earthly governments invade this sacred territory they invade the exclusive domain of god and make war upon the very authority from which they have their right to be. the plea of its necessity for the support of orthodoxy, the maintenance of the truth, and the glory of god will not avail for its justification, for god has not ordained civil government to inflict imprisonment, exile, and death upon religious dissenters, or even heretics; and his truth and glory he has arranged to take care of in quite another fashion. what justin martyr and tertullian in the early church and luther in the reformation-time declared, must for ever stand among the settled verities of heaven: that it is not right to murder, burn, and afflict people because they feel in conscience bound to a belief and course of life which they have found and embraced as the certain will and requirement of their maker. we must ward off heresy with the sword of the spirit, which is the word of god, and not with the sword of the state and with fire. persecution for opinion's sake. and yet such abuses of power have been staining and darkening all the ages of human administration, and, unfortunately, among professing christians as well as among pagans and jews. intolerance is so rooted in the selfishness and ambition of human nature that it has ever been one of the most difficult of practical problems to curb and regulate it. those who have most complained of it whilst feeling it, often only needed to have the circumstances reversed in order to fall into similar wickedness. the puritans, who fled from it as from the dragon himself, soon had their star-chamber too, their whipping-posts, their death-scaffolds, and their sentences of exile for those who dissented from their orthodoxy and their order. even infidelity and atheism, always the most blatant for freedom when in the minority, have shown in the philosophy of hobbes and in the reign of terror in france that they are as liable to be intolerant, fanatical, and oppressive when they have the mastery as the strongest faith and the most assured religionism. and the quakers themselves, who make freedom of conscience one of the chief corner-stones of their religion, have not always been free from offensive and disorderly aggressions upon the rightful sphere of government and the rightful religious freedom of other worshipers. even so treacherous is the human heart on the subject of just and equal religious toleration. spirit of the founders. it is therefore a matter of everlasting gratitude and thanksgiving that all the men most concerned in the founding of our commonwealth were so clear and well-balanced on the subject of religious liberty, and so thoroughly inwove the same into its organic constitution. gustavus adolphus and axel oxenstiern were the heroes of their time in the cause of religious liberty in continental europe. though intensely troubled in their administration by the roman catholics and the anabaptists, the most intolerant of intolerants in those days, they never opposed force against the beliefs or worships of either; and when force was used against the papal powers, it was only so far as to preserve unto themselves and their fellow-confessors the inalienable right to worship god according to the dictates of their own consciences without molestation or disturbance. in their scheme of colonization in this western world, first and last, the invitation was to all classes of christians in suffering and persecution for conscience' sake, who were favorable to a free state where they could have the free enjoyment of their property and religion, to cast in their lot. in the first charter, confirmed by all the authorities of the kingdom and rehearsed in the instructions given by the throne for the execution of the intention, special provision was made for the protection of the convictions and worship of those not of the same confession with that for which the government provided. though a lutheran colony, under a lutheran king, sustained and protected by a lutheran government, the calvinists had place and equal protection in it from the very beginning; and when the quakers came, they were at once and as freely welcomed on the same free principles, as also the representatives of the church of england. as to william penn, though contemplating above all the well-being and furtherance of the particular society of which he was an eminent ornament and preacher, consistency with himself, as well as the established situation of affairs, demanded of him the free toleration of the church, however unpalatable to his society, and with it of all religious sects and orders of worship. from his prison at newgate he had written that the enaction of laws restraining persons from the free exercise of their consciences in matters of religion was but "the knotting of whipcord on the part of the enactors to lash their own posterity, whom they could never promise to be conformed for ages to come to a national religion." again and again had he preached and proclaimed the folly and wickedness of attempting to change the religious opinions of men by the application of force--the utter unreasonableness of persecuting orderly people in this world about things which belong to the next--the gross injustice of sacrificing any one's liberty or property on account of creed if not found breaking the laws relating to natural and civil things. hence, from principle as well as from necessity, when he came to formulate a political constitution for his colony, he laid it down as the primordial principle: "i do, for me and mine, declare and establish for the first fundamental of the government of my province that every person that doth and shall reside therein shall have and enjoy the free possession of his or her faith and exercise of worship toward god, in such way and manner as every such person shall in conscience believe is most acceptable to god. and so long as such person useth not this christian liberty to licentiousness or the destruction of others--that is, to speak loosely and profanely or contemptuously of god, christ, the holy scriptures, or religion, or commit any moral evil or injury against others in their conversation--he or she shall be protected in the enjoyment of the aforesaid christian liberty by the civil magistrate." constitutional provisions. this was in exact accord with the principles and provisions under which the original colony had been formed, and had already been living and prospering for more than forty years preceding. everything, therefore, was in full readiness and condition for the universal and hearty adoption of the grand first article enacted by the first general assembly, to wit: "that no person now or hereafter residing in this province, who shall confess one almighty god to be the creator, upholder, and ruler of the world, and profess himself obliged in conscience to live peaceably and justly under the civil government, shall in any wise be molested or prejudiced on account of his conscientious persuasion or practice; nor shall he be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious worship, place, or ministry contrary to his mind, but shall freely enjoy his liberty in that respect, without interruption or reflection." in these specific provisions all classes in the colony at the time heartily united. and thus was secured and guaranteed to every good citizen that full, rightful, and precious religious freedom which is the birthright of all americans, for which the oppressed of all the ages sighed, and which had to make its way through a red sea of human tears and blood and many a sorrowful wilderness before reaching its place of rest. safeguards to true liberty. iv. but the religious liberty which our fathers thus sought to secure and to transmit to their posterity was not a licentious libertinism. they knew the value of religious principles and good morals to the individual and to the state, and they did not leave it an open matter, under plea of free conscience, for men to conduct themselves as they please with regard to virtue and religion. to be disrespectful toward divine worship, to interfere with its free exercise as honest men are moved to render it, or to set at naught the moral code of honorable behavior in human society, is never the dictate of honest conviction of duty, and, in the nature of things, cannot be. it is not conscience, but the overriding of conscience; nay, rebellion against the whole code of conscience, against the foundations of all government, against the very existence of civil society. liberty to blaspheme almighty god, to profane his name and ordinances, to destroy his worship, and to set common morality at naught, is not religious liberty, but disorderly wickedness, a cloak of maliciousness, the licensing of the devil as an angel of light. it belongs to mere brute liberty, which must be restrained and brought under bonds in order to render true liberty possible. wild and lawless freedom must come under the restraints and limits of defined order, peace, and essential morality, or somebody's freedom must suffer, and social happiness is out of the question. and it is one of the inherent aims and offices of government to enforce this very constraint, without which it totally fails of its end and forfeits its right to be. where people are otherwise law-abiding, orderly, submissive to the requisites for the being and well-being of a state, and abstain from encroachments upon the liberties of others, they are not to be molested, forced, or compelled in spiritual matters contrary to their honest convictions; but public blasphemy, open profanity, disorderly interference with divine worship and reverence, and the hindrance of what tends to the preservation of good morals, it pertains to the existence and office of a state to restrain and punish. severity upon such disorders is not tyrannical abridgment of the rights of conscience, for no proper citizen's conscience can ever prompt or constrain him to any such things. and everything which tends to weaken and destroy regard for the eternal power on which all things depend, to relax the sense of accountability to the divine judgment, and to trample on the laws of eternal morality, is the worst enemy of the state, which it cannot allow without peril to its own existence. on the other hand, the state is bound for the same reasons to protect and defend religion in general and the cultivation of the religious sentiments, in so far, at least, as the laws of virtue and order are not transgressed in the name of religion. it may not interfere to decide between different religious societies or churches, as they may be equally conscientious and honest in their diversities; but where the tendency is to good and reverence, and the training of the community to right and orderly life, it belongs to the office and being of the state not only to tolerate, but to protect them all alike. in the fatherly care of its subjects, the people consenting, the state may also recommend and provide support for some particular and approved order of faith and worship, just as it provides for public education. and though the civil power may not rightfully punish, fine, imprison, and oppress orderly and honest citizens for conscientious non-conformity to any one specific system of belief and worship, it may, and must, provide for and protect what tends to its rightful conservation, and also condemn, punish, and restrain whatsoever tends to unseat it and undermine its existence and peace. these are fundamental requirements in all sound political economy. laws on religion and morals. our fathers, in their wisdom, understood this, and fashioned their state provisions and laws accordingly. the thing specified as the supreme concern of the public authorities in the original settlement of this territory by the swedes was, to "consider and see to it that a true and due worship, becoming honor, laud, and praise be paid to the most high god in all things," and that "all persons, but especially the young, shall be duly instructed in the articles of their christian faith." but if public worship and religious instruction are to be fostered and preserved by the state, there must be set times for it, the people released at those times from hindering occupations and engagements, and whatever may interfere therewith restrained and put under bonds against interruption. in other words, the lord's proper worship demands and requires a protected lord's day. such appointed and sacred times for these holy purposes have been from the foundation of the world. under all dispensations one day in every seven was a day unto the lord, protected and preserved for such sacred uses, on which secular occupations should cease, and nothing allowed which would interfere with the public worship of almighty god and the handling of his word. and "because it was requisite to appoint a certain day, that the people might know when they ought to come together, it appears that the christian church [and so all christian states] did for that purpose appoint the lord's day," our weekly sunday. this william penn found in existence and observance by the swedes and the dutch on this territory when he arrived. he therefore advised, and the first general assembly of pennsylvania justly ordained, "that, according to the good example of the primitive christians and the ease of the creation, every first day of the week, called the lord's day, people shall abstain from their common daily labor, that they may the better dispose themselves to worship god according to their understandings"--a provision so necessary and important that the statute laws of our commonwealth have always guarded its observance with penalties which the state cannot in justice to itself allow to go unenforced, and which no good citizen should refuse strictly to obey. and to the same end was it provided and ordained by the first general assembly that "if any person shall abuse or deride another for his different persuasion or practice in religion, such shall be looked upon as disturbers of the peace, and be punished accordingly." and in the line of the same wholesome and necessary policy it was also further provided and ordained that "all such offences against god as swearing, cursing, lying, profane talking, drunkenness, obscene words, revels, etc. etc., which excite the people to rudeness, cruelty, and irreligion, shall be respectively discouraged and severely punished." such were the good and righteous provisions made for the restraint of the licentiousness and brutishness of man in the primeval days of our commonwealth; and wherein it has since sunk away from these original organic laws the people have only weakened and degraded themselves, and hindered that virtuous and happy prosperity which would otherwise in far larger degree than now be our inheritance. forms of government. v. and yet again, as the fathers of our commonwealth gave us religion without compulsion, so they also gave us a state without a king. there is nothing necessarily wrong or necessarily right in this particular. monarchy, aristocracy, republicanism, or pure democracy cannot claim divine right the one over against the other. either may be good, or either may be bad, as the situation and the chances may be. there has been as much bloody wrong and ruin wrought in the name of liberty as in the establishment of thrones. there have been as good and happy governments by kings as by any other methods of human administration. civil authority is essential to man, and the power for it must lie somewhere. the only question is as to the safest depository of it. the mere form of the government is no great matter. it has been justly said, "there is hardly a government in the world so ill designed that in good hands would not do well enough, nor any so good that in ill hands can do aught great and good." governments depend on men, not men on governments. let men be good, and the government will not be bad; but if men are bad, no government will hold for good. if government be bad, good men will cure it; and if the government be good, bad men will warp and spoil it. nor is there any form of government known to man that is not liable to abuse, prostitution, tyranny, unrighteousness, and oppression. the best government is that which most efficiently conserves the true ends of government, be the form what it may. anything differing from this is worthless sentimentalism, undeserving of sober regard. and to meet the true ends of government there must be power to enforce obedience, and there must be checks upon that power to secure its subjects against its abuse; for "liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is slavery." but there may be liberty under monarchy, as well as reverence and obedience under democracy, whilst there may be oppression and bloody tyranny under either. amid the varied experiments of the ages the human mind is more and more settling itself in favor of mixed forms of government, in which the rights of the people and the limitations of authority are set down in fixed constitutions, taking the direct rule from the multitude, but still holding the rulers accountable to the people. such were more or less the forms under which the founders of our commonwealth were tutored. a republican state. but they went a degree further than the precedents before them. they believed the safest depository of power to be with the people themselves, under constitutions ordained by those intending to live under them and administered by persons of their own choice. "where the laws rule, and the people are a party to those laws," was believed to be the true ideal and realization of civil liberty--the way "to support power in reverence with the people, and to secure the people from the abuse of power, that they may be free by their just obedience, and the magistrates honorable for their just administration." and with these ideas, "with reverence to god and good conscience to men," the first general assembly in enacted a common code of sixty-one laws, in which the foundation-stones of the civil and criminal jurisprudence of this broad commonwealth were laid, and a style of government ordained so reasonable, moderate, just, and equal in its provisions that no one yet has found just cause to deny the wisdom and beneficence of its structure, whilst montesquieu pronounces it "an instance unparalleled in the world's history of the foundation of a great state laid in peace, justice, and equality." the last two hundred years. two hundred years have gone by since this completed organization of our noble commonwealth. her free and liberal principles then still remained in large measure to be learned by some of the other american colonies. from the very start she was the chief conservator of what was to be the model for all this grand union of free states--a character which she has never lost in all the history of our national existence. six generations of stalwart freemen has she reared beneath her shielding care to people her own vast territory and that of many other states, no one of which has ever failed in truthfulness to the great principles in which she was born. always more solid than noisy, and more reserved than obtrusive, she has ever served as the great balance-wheel in the mighty engine of our national organization. her life, commingled with other lives attempered to her own, now pulsates from ocean to ocean and from the frozen lakes to the warm gulf waters, all glad and glorious in the unity and sunshine of constitutional government in the hands of a free people. with her population drawn from all nationalities to learn from her lips the sacred lessons of independent self-rule, she has sent it forth as freely to the westward to build co-equal states in the beauty of her own image, whilst four millions of her children still abide in growing happiness under her maternal care. verily, it was the spirit of prophecy which said, two hundred years ago, "_god will bless that ground_." that blessing we have lived to see. may it continue for yet many centennials, and grow as it endures! may the faith and spirit of the men through whose piety and wisdom it has come still warm and animate the hearts of their successors to the latest generations! may no careless or corrupt administration of justice or "looseness" or infidelities of the people come in to bring down the wrath of heaven for its interruption! may the sterling principles of our happy freedom be made good to us and our posterity by the good keeping of them in honest virtue and obedience, and in due reverence of him who gave them, and who is the god and judge of nations! may those sacred conditions of the divine favor "which descend not with worldly inheritances" be so embedded in the training and education of our youth that the spirit of the children may not be a libel on the faith and devotion of their fathers! centuries have passed, but the god of gustavus adolphus, of the pilgrims of plymouth rock, of william penn, and of the hero-saints of every age and country still lives and reigns. men may deny it, but that does not alter it. his government and gospel are the same now that they have ever been. what he most approved and blessed in their days he most approves and blesses in ours. and may their fear and love of him be to us and our children a copy and a guide, to steer in safety amid the dangerous rapids of these doubtful times! "and thou, philadelphia, the virgin settlement of this province, named before thou wert born! what love, what care, what service, and what travail has there been to bring thee forth and preserve thee from such as would abuse and defile thee! my soul prays to god for thee, that thou mayest stand in the day of trial, that thy children may be blessed of the lord, and thy people saved by his power." the end. chronicles of the schÖnberg-cotta family by two of themselves. new york: dodd, mead & company, publishers. publisher's note. to those unfamiliar with the history of luther and his times, the title of this unique work may not sufficiently indicate its character. the design of the author is to so reproduce the times of the reformation as to place them more vividly and impressively before the mind of the reader than has been done by ordinary historical narratives. she does this with such remarkable success, that it is difficult to realize we are not actually hearing luther and those around him speak. we seem to be personal actors in the stirring scenes of that eventful period. one branch of the cotta family were luther's earliest, and ever after, his most intimate friends. under the title of "chronicles" our author makes the members of this family, (which she brings in almost living reality before us), to record their daily experiences as connected with the reformation age. this diary is fictitious, but it is employed with wonderful skill in bringing the reader face to face with the great ideas and facts associated with luther and men of his times, as they are given to us by accredited history, and is written with a beauty, tenderness and power rarely equalled. i. elsè's story. friedrich wishes me to write a chronicle of my life. friedrich is my eldest brother. i am sixteen, and he is seventeen, and i have always been in the habit of doing what he wishes; and therefore, although it seems to me a very strange idea, i do so now. it is easy for friedrich to write a chronicle, or anything else, because he has thoughts. but i have so few thoughts, i can only write what i see and hear about people and things. and that is certainly very little to write about, because everything goes on so much the same always with us. the people around me are the same i have known since i was a baby, and the things have changed very little; except that the people are more, because there are so many little children in our home now, and the things seem to me to become less, because my father does not grow richer: and there are more to clothe and feed. however, since fritz wishes it, i will try; especially as ink and paper are the two things which are plentiful among us, because my father is a printer. fritz and i have never been separated all our lives until now. yesterday he went to the university at erfurt. it was when i was crying at the thought of parting with him that he told me his plan about the chronicle. he is to write one, and i another. he said it would be a help to him, as our twilight talk has been--when always, ever since i can remember, we two have crept away in summer into the garden, under the great pear-tree, and in winter into the deep window of the lumber-room inside my father's printing-room, where the bales of paper are kept, and old books are piled up, among which we used to make ourselves a seat. it may be a help and comfort to fritz, but i do not see how it ever can be any to me. he had all the thoughts, and he will have them still. but i--what shall i have for his voice and his dear face, but cold, blank paper, and no thoughts at all! besides, i am so very busy, being the eldest; and the mother is far from strong, and the father so often wants me to help him at his types, or to read to him while he sets them. however, fritz wishes it, and i shall do it. i wonder what his chronicle will be like! but where am i to begin? what is a chronicle? two of the books in the bible are called "chronicles" in latin--at least fritz says that is what the other long word[ ] means--and the first book begins with "adam," i know, because i read it one day to my father for his printing. but fritz certainly cannot mean me to begin so far back as that. of course i could not remember. i think i had better begin with the oldest person i know, because she is the furthest on the way back to adam; and that is our grandmother von schönberg. she is very old--more than sixty--but her form is so erect, and her dark eyes so piercing, that sometimes she looks almost younger than her daughter, our precious mother, who is often bowed down with ill-health and cares. [footnote : paralipomenon.] our grandmother's father was of a noble bohemian family, and that is what links us with the nobles, although my father's family belongs to the burgher class. fritz and i like to look at the old seal of our grandfather von schönberg, with all its quarterings, and to hear the tales of our knightly and soldier ancestors--of crusader and baron. my mother, indeed, tells us this is a mean pride, and that my father's printing-press is a symbol of a truer nobility than any crest of battle-axe or sword; but our grandmother, i know, thinks it a great condescension for a schönberg to have married into a burgher family. fritz feels with my mother, and says the true crusade will be waged by our father's black types far better than by our great-grandfather's lances. but the old warfare was so beautiful, with the prancing horses and the streaming banners! and i cannot help thinking it would have been pleasanter to sit at the window of some grand old castle like the wartburg, which towers above our town, and wave my hand to fritz, as he rode, in flashing armour, on his war-horse, down the steep hill side, instead of climbing up on piles of dusty books at our lumber-room window, and watching him, in his humble burgher dress, with his wallet (not too well filled), walk down the street, while no one turned to look. ah, well! the parting would have been as dreary, and fritz himself could not be nobler. only i cannot help seeing that people do honour the bindings and the gilded titles, in spite of all my mother and fritz can say; and i should like my precious book to have such a binding, that the people who could not read the inside, might yet stop to look at the gold clasps and the jewelled back. to those who can read the inside, perhaps it would not matter. for of all the old barons and crusaders my grandmother tells us of, i know well none ever were or looked nobler than our fritz. his eyes are not blue, like mine--which are only german cotta eyes, but dark and flashing. mine are very good for seeing, sewing, and helping about the printing; but his, i think, would penetrate men's hearts and command them, or survey a battle-field at a glance. last week, however, when i said something of the kind to him, he laughed, and said there were better battle-fields than those on which men's bones lay bleaching; and then there came that deep look into his eyes, when he seems to see into a world beyond my reach. but i began with our grandmother, and here i am thinking about friedrich again. i am afraid that he will be the beginning and end of my chronicle. fritz has been nearly all the world to me. i wonder if that is why he is to leave me. the monks say we must not love any one too much; and one day, when we went to see aunt agnes, my mother's only sister, who is a nun in the convent of nimptschen, i remember her saying to me when i had been admiring the flowers in the convent garden, "little elsè, will you come and live with us, and be a happy, blessed sister here?" i said, "_whose_ sister, aunt agnes? i am fritz's sister! may fritz come too?" "fritz could go into the monastry at eisenach," she said. "then i would go with him," i said. "i am fritz's sister, and i would go nowhere in the world without him." she looked on me with a cold, grave pity, and murmured, "poor little one, she is like her mother, the heart learns to idolize early. she has much to unlearn. god's hand is against all idols." that is many years ago; but i remember as if it were yesterday, how the fair convent garden seemed to me all at once to grow dull and cheerless at her words and her grave looks, and i felt it damp and cold like a church-yard; and the flowers looked like made flowers; and the walls seemed to rise like the walls of a cave, and i scarcely breathed until i was outside again, and had hold of fritz's hand. for i am not at all religious. i am afraid i do not even wish to be. all the religious men and women i have ever seen do not seem to me half so sweet as my poor dear mother; nor as kind, clever, and cheerful as my father; nor half as noble and good as fritz. and the lives of the saints puzzle me exceedingly, because it seems to me that if every one were to follow the example of st. catherine, and even our own st. elizabeth of hungary, and disobey their parents, and leave their little children, it would make everything so very wrong and confused. i wonder if any one else ever felt the same, because these are thoughts i have never even told to fritz; for he _is_ religious, and i am afraid it would pain him. our grandmother's husband fled from bohemia on account of religion; but i am afraid it was not the right kind of religion, because no one seems to like to speak about it; and what fritz and i know about him is only what we have picked up from time to time, and put together for ourselves. nearly a hundred years ago, two priests preached in bohemia, called john huss and jerome of prague. they seem to have been dearly beloved, and to have been thought good men during their life-time; but people must have been mistaken about them, for they were both burnt alive as heretics at constance in two following years--in and ; which of course proves that they could not have been good men, but exceedingly bad. however, their friends in bohemia would not give up believing what they had learned of these men, although they had seen what end it led to. i do not think this was strange, because it is so very difficult to make oneself believe what one ought, as it is, and i do not see that the fear of being burned even would help one to do it; although, certainly, it might keep one silent. but these friends of john huss were many of them nobles and great men, who were not accustomed to conceal their thoughts, and they would not be silent about what huss had taught them. what this was, fritz and i never could find out, because my grandmother, who answers all our other questions, never would tell us a word about this. we are, therefore, afraid it must be something very wicked indeed. and yet, when i asked one day if our grandfather (who, we think, had followed huss), was a wicked man, her eyes flashed like lightning, and she said vehemently,-- "better never lived or died!" this perplexes us, but perhaps we shall understand it, like so many other things, when we are older. great troubles followed on the death of huss. bohemia was divided into three parties, who fought against each other. castles were sacked, and noble women and little children were driven into caves and forests. our forefathers were among the sufferers. in the conflict reached its height; many were beheaded, hung, burned alive, or tortured. my grandfather was killed as he was escaping, and my grandmother encountered great dangers, and lost all the little property which was left her, in reaching eisenach, a young widow with two little children, my mother and aunt agnes. whatever it was that my great grandfather believed wrong, his wife did not seem to share it. she took refuge in the augustinian convent, where she lived until my aunt agnes took the veil, and my mother was married, when she came to live with us. she is as fond of fritz as i am, in her way; although she scolds us all in turn, which is perhaps a good thing, because as she says, no one else does. and she has taught me nearly all i know, except the apostles' creed and ten commandments, which our father taught us, and the paternoster and ave mary which we learned at our mother's knee. fritz, of course, knows infinitely more than i do. he can say the cisio janus (the church calendar) through without one mistake, and also the latin grammar, i believe; and he has read latin books of which i cannot remember the names; and he understands all that the priests read and sing, and can sing himself as well as any of them. but the legends of the saints, and the multiplication table, and the names of herbs and flowers, and the account of the holy sepulchre, and of the pilgrimage to rome,--all these our grandmother has taught us. she looks so beautiful, our dear old grandmother, as she sits by the stove with her knitting, and talks to fritz and me, with her lovely white hair and her dark bright eyes, so full of life and youth, they make us think of the fire on the hearth when the snow is on the roof, all warm within, or, as fritz says,-- "it seems as if her heart lived always in the summer, and the winter of old age could only touch her body." but i think the summer in which our grandmother's soul lives must be rather a fiery kind of summer, in which there are lightnings as well as sunshine. fritz thinks we shall know her again at the resurrection day by that look in her eyes, only perhaps a little softened. but that seems to me terrible, and very far off; and i do not like to think of it. we often debate which of the saints she is like. i think st. anna, the mother of mary, mother of god, but fritz thinks st. catherine of egypt, because she is so like a queen. besides all this, i had nearly forgotten to say i know the names of several of the stars, which fritz taught me. and i can knit and spin, and do point stitch, and embroider a little. i intend to teach it to all the children. there are a great many children in our home and more every year. if there had not been so many, i might have had time to learn more, and also to be more religious; but i cannot see what they would do at home if i were to have a vocation. perhaps some of the younger ones may be spared to become saints. i wonder if this should turn out to be so, and if i help them, if any one ever found some little humble place in heaven for helping some one else to be religious. because then there might perhaps be hope for me after all. * * * * * our father is the wisest man in eisenach. the mother thinks, perhaps, in the world. of this, however, our grandmother has doubts. she has seen other places besides eisenach, which is perhaps the reason. he certainly is the wisest man i ever saw. he talks about more things that i cannot understand than any one else i know. he is also a great inventor. he thought of the plan of printing books before any one else, and had almost completed the invention before any press was set up. and he always believed there was another world on the other side of the great sea, long before the admiral christopher columbus discovered america. the only misfortune has been that some one else has always stepped in just before he had completed his inventions, when nothing but some little insignificant detail was wanting to make everything perfect, and carried off all the credit and profit. it is this which has kept us from becoming rich,--this and the children. but the father's temper is so placid and even, nothing ever sours it. and this is what makes us all admire and love him so much, even more than his great abilities. he seems to rejoice in these successes of other people just as much as if he had quite succeeded in making them himself. if the mother laments a little over the fame that might have been his, he smiles and says,-- "never mind, little mother. it will be all the same a hundred years hence. let us not grudge any one his reward. the world has the benefit if we have not." then if the mother sighs a little over the scanty larder and wardrobe, he replies,-- "cheer up, little mother, there are more americas yet to be discovered, and more inventions to be made. in fact," he adds, with that deep far seeing look of his, "something else has just occurred to me, which, when i have brought it to perfection, will throw all the discoveries of this and every other age into the shade." and he kisses the mother and departs into his printing-room. and the mother looks wonderingly after him, and says,-- "we must not disturb the father, children, with our little cares. he has great things in his mind, which we shall all reap the harvest of some day." so, she goes to patch some little garment once more, and to try to make one day's dinner expand into enough for two. what the father's great discovery is at present, fritz and i do not quite know. but we think it has something to do, either with the planets and the stars, or with that wonderful stone the philosophers have been so long occupied about. in either case, it is sure to make us enormously rich all at once; and, meantime, we may well be content to eke out our living as best we can. * * * * * of the mother i cannot think of anything to say. she is just the mother--our own dear, patient, loving, little mother--unlike every one else in the world; and yet it seems as if there was nothing to say about her by which one could make any one else understand what she is. it seems as if she were to other people (with reverence i say it) just what the blessed mother of god is to the other saints. st. catherine has her wheel and her crown, and st. agnes her lamb and her palm, and st. ursula her eleven thousand virgins; but mary, the ever-blessed, has only the holy child. she is the blessed woman, the holy mother, and nothing else. that is just what the mother is. she is the precious little mother, and the best woman in the world, and that is all. i could describe her better by saying what she is not. she never says a harsh word to any one nor of any one. she is never impatient with the father, like our grandmother. she is never impatient with the children, like me. she never complains or scolds. she is never idle. she never looks severe and cross at us, like aunt agnes. but i must not compare her with aunt agnes, because she herself once reproved me for doing so; she said aunt agnes was a religious, a pure, and holy woman, far, far above her sphere or ours; and we might be thankful, if we ever reached heaven, if she let us kiss the hem of her garment. * * * * * yes, aunt agnes is a holy woman--a nun; i must be careful what i say of her. she makes long, long prayers, they say,--so long that she has been found in the morning fainting on the cold floor of the convent church. she eats so little that father christopher, who is the convent confessor and ours, says he sometimes thinks she must be sustained by angels. but fritz and i think that, if that is true, the angel's food cannot be very nourishing; for, when we saw her last, through the convent grating, she looked like a shadow in her black robe, or like that dreadful picture of death we saw in the convent chapel. she wears the coarsest sackcloth, and often, they say, sleeps on ashes. one of the nuns told my mother, that one day when she fainted, and they had to unloose her dress, they found scars and stripes, scarcely healed, on her fair neck and arms, which she must have inflicted on herself. they all say she will have a very high place in heaven; but it seems to me, unless there is a very great difference between the highest and lowest places in heaven, it is a great deal of trouble to take. but, then, i am not religious; and it is altogether so exceedingly difficult to me to understand about heaven. will every one in heaven be always struggling for the high places? because when every one does that at church on the great festival days, it is not at all pleasant; those who succeed look proud, and those who fail look cross. but, of course, no one will be cross in heaven, nor proud. then how will the saints feel who do _not_ get the highest places? will they be pleased or disappointed? if they are pleased, what is the use of struggling so much to climb a little higher? and if they are not pleased, would that be saint-like? because the mother always teaches us to choose the lowest places, and the eldest to give up to the little ones. will the greatest, then, _not_ give up to the little ones in heaven? of one thing i feel sure: if the mother had a high place in heaven, she would always be stooping down to help some one else up, or making room for others. and then, what _are_ the highest places in heaven? at the emperor's court, i know, they are the places nearest him; the seven electors stand close around the throne. but can it be possible that any would ever feel at ease, and happy, so very near the almighty? it seems so exceedingly difficult to please him here, and so very easy to offend him, that it does seem to me it would be happier to be a little further off, in some little quiet corner near the gate, with a good many of the saints between. the other day, father christopher ordered me such a severe penance for dropping a crumb of the sacred host; although i could not help thinking it was as much the priest's fault as mine. but he said god would be exceedingly displeased; and fritz told me the priests fast and torment themselves severely sometimes, for only omitting a word in the mass. then the awful picture of the lord christ, with the lightnings in his hand! it is very different from the carving of him on the cross. why did he suffer so? was it, like aunt agnes, to get a higher place in heaven? or, perhaps, to have the right to be severe, as she is with us? such very strange things seem to offend and to please god, i cannot understand it at all; but that is because i have no vocation for religion. in the convent, the mother says, they grow like god, and so understand him better. is aunt agnes, then, more like god than our mother? that face, still and pale as death; those cold, severe eyes; that voice, so hollow and monotonous, as if it came from a metal tube or a sepulchre, instead of from a heart! is it with that look god will meet us, with that kind of voice he will speak to us? indeed, the judgment-day is very dreadful to think of; and one must indeed need to live many years in the convent not to be afraid of going to heaven. oh, if only our mother were the saint--the kind of good woman that pleased god--instead of aunt agnes, how sweet it would be to try and be a saint then; and how sure one would feel that one might hope to reach heaven, and that, if one reached it, one would be happy there! * * * * * aunt ursula cotta is another of the women i wish were the right kind of saint. she is my father's first cousin's wife; but we have always called her aunt, because almost all little children who know her do,--she is so fond of children, and so kind to every one. she is not poor like us, although cousin conrad cotta never made any discoveries, or even nearly made any. there is a picture of st. elizabeth of thuringia, our sainted landgravine, in our parish church, which always makes me think of aunt ursula. st. elizabeth is standing at the gate of a beautiful castle, something like our castle of the wartburg, and around her are kneeling a crowd of very poor people--cripples, and blind, and poor thin mothers, with little hungry-looking children--all stretching out their hands to the lady, who is looking on with such kindly compassionate looks, just like aunt ursula; except that st. elizabeth is very thin and pale, and looks almost as nearly starved as the beggars around her, and aunt ursula is rosy and fat, with the pleasantest dimples in her round face. but the look in the eyes is the same--so loving, and true, and earnest, and compassionate. the thinness and pallor are, of course, only just the difference there must be between a saint who fasts, and does so much penance, and keeps herself awake whole nights saying prayers, as st. elizabeth did, and a prosperous burgher's wife, who eats and sleeps like other people, and is only like the good landgravine in being so kind to every one. the other half of the story of the picture, however, would not do for aunt ursula. in the apron of the saint, instead of loaves of bread are beautiful clusters of red roses. our grandmother told us the meaning of this. the good landgravine's husband did not quite like her giving so much to the poor; because she was so generous she would have left the treasury bare. so she used to give her alms unknown to him. but on this day when she was giving away those loaves to the beggars at the castle gate, he happened suddenly to return, and finding her occupied in this way, he asked her rather severely what she had in her apron. she said "roses!" "let me see," said the landgrave. and god loved her so much, that to save her from being blamed, he wrought a miracle. when she opened her apron, instead of the loaves she had been distributing, there were beautiful flowers. and this is what the picture represents. i always wanted to know the end of the story. i hope god worked another miracle when the landgrave went away, and changed the roses back into loaves. i suppose he did, because the starving people look so contented. but our grandmother does not know. only in this, i do not think aunt ursula would have done the same as the landgravine. i think she would have said boldly if cousin cotta had asked her, "i have loaves in my apron, and i am giving them to these poor starving subjects of yours and mine," and never been afraid of what he would say. and then, perhaps, cousin cotta--i mean the landgrave's--heart would have been so touched, that he would have forgiven her, and even praised her, and brought her some more loaves. and then instead of the bread being changed to flowers, the landgrave's heart would have been changed from stone to flesh, which does seem a better thing. but when i once said this to grandmother, she said it was very wrong to fancy other ends to the legends of the saints, just as if they were fairy tales; that st. elizabeth really lived in that old castle of the wartburg, not more than three hundred years ago, and walked through those very streets of eisenach, and gave alms to the poor here, and went into the hospitals, and dressed the most loathsome wounds that no one else would touch, and spoke tender loving words to wretched outcasts no one else would look at. that seems to me so good and dear of her; but that is not what made her a saint, because aunt ursula and our mother do things like that, and our mother has told me again and again that it is aunt agnes who is like the saint, and not she. it is what she suffered, i suppose, that has made them put her in the calendar; and yet it is not suffering in itself that makes people saints, because i do not believe st. elizabeth herself suffered more than our mother. it is true she used to leave her husband's side and kneel all night on the cold floor, while he was asleep. but the mother has done the same as that often and often. when any of the little ones has been ill, how often she has walked up and down hour after hour, with the sick child in her arms, soothing and fondling it, and quieting all its fretful cries with unwearying tender patience. then st. elizabeth fasted until she was almost a shadow; but how often have i seen our mother quietly distribute all that was nice and good in our frugal meals to my father and the children, scarcely leaving herself a bit, and hiding her plate behind a dish that the father might not see. and fritz and i often say how wasted and worn she looks; not like the mother of mercy as we remember her, but too much like the wan pale mother of sorrows with the pierced heart. then as to pain, have not i seen our mother suffer pain compared with which aunt agnes or st. elizabeth's discipline must be like the prick of a pin. but yet all that is not the right kind of suffering to make a saint. our precious mother walks up and down all night not to make herself a saint, but to soothe her sick child. she eats no dinner, not because she chooses to fast, but because we are poor, and bread is dear. she suffers, because god lays suffering upon her, not because she takes it on herself. and all this cannot make her a saint. when i say anything to compassionate or to honour her, she smiles and says,-- "my elsè, i chose this lower life instead of the high vocation of your aunt agnes, and i must take the consequences. we cannot have our portion both in this world and the next." if the size of our mother's portion in the next world were to be in proportion to its smallness in this, i think she might have plenty to spare; but this i do not venture to say to her. there is one thing st. elizabeth did which certainly our mother would never do. she left her little father less children to go into a convent. perhaps it was this that pleased god and the lord jesus christ so very much, that they took her up to be so high in heaven. if this is the case, it is a great mercy for our father and for us that our mother has not set her heart on being a saint. we sometimes think, however, that perhaps although he cannot make her a saint on account of the rules they have in heaven about it, god may give our mother some little good thing, or some kind word, because of her being so very good to us. _she_ says this is no merit, however, because of her loving us so much. if she loved us less, and so found it more a trouble to work for us; or if we were little stranger beggar children she _chose_ to be kind to, instead of her own, i suppose god would like it better. there is one thing, moreover, in st. elizabeth's history which once brought fritz and me into great trouble and perplexity. when we were little children and did not understand things as we do now, but thought we ought to try and imitate the saints, and that what was right for them must be right for us, and when our grandmother had been telling us about the holy landgravine privately selling her jewels, and emptying her husband's treasury to feed the poor, we resolved one day to go and do likewise. we knew a very poor old woman in the next street, with a great many orphan grandchildren, and we planned a long time together before we thought of the way to help her like st. elizabeth. at length the opportunity came. it was christmas eve, and for a rarity there were some meat, and apples, and pies in our storeroom. we crept into the room in the twilight, filled my apron with pies, and meat, and cakes, and stole out to our old woman's to give her our booty. the next morning the larder was found, despoiled of half of what was to have been our christmas dinner. the children cried, and the mother looked almost as distressed as they did. the father's placid temper for once was roused, and he cursed the cat and the rats, and wished he had completed his new infallible rat trap. our grandmother said very quietly,-- "thieves more discriminating than rats or mice have been here. there are no crumbs, and not a thing is out of place. besides, i never heard of rats or mice eating pie-dishes." fritz and i looked at each other, and began to fear that we had done wrong, when little christopher said-- "i saw fritz and elsè carry out the pies last night." "elsè! fritz!" said our father, "what does this mean?" i would have confessed, but i remembered st. elizabeth and the roses, and said, with a trembling voice-- "they were not pies you saw, christopher, but roses." "roses," said the mother very gravely, "at christmas!" i almost hoped the pies would have reappeared on the shelves. it was the very juncture at which they did in the legend; but they did not. on the contrary, everything seemed to turn against us. "fritz," said our father very sternly, "tell the truth, or i shall give you a flogging." this was a part of the story where st. elizabeth's example quite failed us. i did not know what she would have done if some one else had been punished for her generosity; but i felt no doubt what i must do. "o father!" i said, "it is my fault--it was my thought! we took the things to the poor old woman in the next street for her grandchildren." "then she is no better than a thief," said our father, "to have taken them. fritz and elsè, foolish children, shall have no christmas dinner for their pains and elsè shall, moreover, be locked into her own room for telling a story." i was sitting shivering in my room, wondering how it was that things succeeded so differently with st. elizabeth and with us, when aunt ursula's round pleasant voice sounded up the stairs, and in another minute she was holding me laughing in her arms. "my poor little elsè! we must wait a little before we imitate our patron saint; or we must begin at the other end. it would never do, for instance, for me to travel to rome with eleven thousand young ladies like st. ursula." my grandmother had guessed the meaning of our foray, and aunt ursula coming in at the time, had heard the narrative, and insisted on sending us another christmas dinner. fritz and i secretly believed that st. elizabeth had a good deal to do with the replacing of our christmas dinner; but after that, we understood that caution was needed in transferring the holy example of the saints to our own lives, and that at present we must not venture beyond the ten commandments. yet to think that st. elizabeth, a real canonized saint--whose picture is over altars in the churches--whose good deeds are painted on the church windows, and illumined by the sun shining through them--whose bones are laid up in reliquaries, one of which i wear always next my heart--actually lived and prayed in that dark old castle above us, and walked along these very streets--perhaps even had been seen from this window of fritz's and my beloved lumber-room. only three hundred years ago! if only i had lived three hundred years earlier, or she three hundred years later, i might have seen her and talked to her, and asked her what it was that made her a saint. there are so many questions i should like to have asked her. i would have said, "dear st. elizabeth, tell me what it is that makes you a saint? it cannot be your charity, because no one can be more charitable than aunt ursula, and she is not a saint; and it cannot be your sufferings, or your patience, or your love, or your denying yourself for the sake of others, because our mother is like you in all that, and she is not a saint. was it because you left your little children, that god loves you so much? or because you not only did and bore the things god laid on you, as our mother does, but chose out other things for yourself, which you thought harder?" and if she were gentle (as i think she was), and would have listened, i would have asked her, "holy landgravine, why are things which were so right and holy in you, wrong for fritz and me?" and i would also have asked her, "dear st. elizabeth, my patroness, what is it in heaven that makes you so happy there?" but i forgot--she would not have been in heaven at all. she would not even have been made a saint, because it was only after her death, when the sick and crippled were healed by touching her body, that they found out what a saint she had been. perhaps, even, she would not herself have known she was a saint. and if so, i wonder if it can be possible that our mother is a saint after all, only she does not know it. * * * * * fritz and i are four or five years older than any of the children. two little sisters died of the plague before any more were born. one was baptized, and died when she was a year old, before she could soil her baptismal robes. therefore we feel sure she is in paradise. i think of her whenever i look at the cloud of glory around the blessed virgin in st. george's church. out of the cloud peep a number of happy child-faces--some leaning their round soft cheeks on their pretty dimpled hands, and all looking up with such confidence at the dear mother of god. i suppose the little children in heaven especially belong to her. it must be very happy, then, to have died young. but of that other little nameless babe who died at the same time none of us ever dare to speak. it was not baptized, and they say the souls of little unbaptized babes hover about for ever in the darkness between heaven and hell. think of the horror of falling from the loving arms of our mother into the cold and the darkness, to shiver and wail there for ever, and belong to no one. at eisenach we have a foundling hospital, attached to one of the nunneries founded by st. elizabeth, for such forsaken little ones. if st. elizabeth could only establish a foundling somewhere near the gates of paradise, for such little nameless outcast child-souls! but i suppose she is too high in heaven, and too far from the gates to hear the plaintive cries of such abandoned little ones. or perhaps god, who was so much pleased with her for deserting her own little children, would not allow it. i suppose the saints in heaven who have been mothers, or even elder sisters like me, leave their mother's hearts on earth, and that in paradise they are all monks and nuns like aunt agnes and father christopher. next to that little nameless one came the twin girls chriemhild (named after our grandmother), and atlantis, so christened by our father on account of the discovery of the great world beyond the sea which he had so often thought of, and which the great admiral christopher columbus accomplished about that time. then the twin boys boniface pollux and christopher castor; their names being a compromise between our father, who was struck with some remarkable conjunction of their stars at their birth, and my mother, who thought it only right to counterbalance such pagan appellations with names written in heaven. then another boy, who only lived a few weeks; and then the present baby, thekla, who is the plaything and darling of us all. * * * * * these are nearly all the people i know well; except, indeed, martin luther, the miner's son, to whom aunt ursula cotta has been so kind. he is dear to us all as one of our own family. he is about the same age as fritz, who thinks there is no one like him. and he has such a voice, and is so religious, and yet so merry withal; at least at times. it was his voice and his devout ways which first drew aunt ursula's attention to him. she had seen him often at the daily prayers at church. he used to sing as a chorister with the boys of the latin school of the parish of st. george, where fritz and he studied. the ringing tones of his voice, so clear and true, often attracted aunt ursula's attention; and he always seemed so devout. but we knew little about him. he was very poor, and had a pinched, half-starved look when first we noticed him. often i have seen him on the cold winter evenings singing about the streets for alms, and thankfully receiving a few pieces of broken bread and meat at the doors of the citizens; for he was never a bold and impudent beggar as some of the scholars are. our acquaintance with him, however, began one day which i remember well. i was at aunt ursula's house, which is in george street, near the church and school. i had watched the choir of boys singing from door to door through the street. no one had given them anything: they looked disappointed and hungry. at last they stopped before the window where aunt ursula and i were sitting with her little boy. that clear, high, ringing voice was there again. aunt ursula went to the door and called martin in, and then she went herself to the kitchen, and after giving him a good meal himself, sent him away with his wallet full, and told him to come again very soon. after that, i suppose she consulted with cousin conrad cotta, and the result was that martin luther became an inmate of their house, and has lived among us familiarly since then like one of our own cousins. he is wonderfully changed since that day. scarcely any one would have thought then what a joyous nature his is. the only thing in which it seemed then to flow out was in his clear true voice. he was subdued and timid like a creature that had been brought up without love. especially he used to be shy with young maidens, and seemed afraid to look in a woman's face. i think they must have been very severe with him at home. indeed, he confessed to fritz, that he had often as a child been beaten till the blood came for trifling offences, such as taking a nut, and that he was afraid to play in his parents' presence. and yet he would not hear a word reflecting on his parents. he says his mother is the most pious woman in mansfeld, where his family live, and his father denies himself in every way to maintain and educate his children, especially martin, who is to be the learned man of the family. his parents are inured to hardships themselves, and believe it to be the best early discipline for boys. certainly poor martin had enough of hardship here. but that may be the fault of his mother's relations at eisenach, who, they hoped, would have been kind to him, but who do not seem to have cared for him at all. at one time he told fritz he was so pinched and discouraged by the extreme poverty he suffered, that he thought of giving up study in despair, and returning to mansfeld to work with his father at the smelting furnaces, or in the mines under the mountains. yet indignant tears start to his eyes if any one ventures to hint that his father might have done more for him. he was a poor digger in the mines, he told fritz, and often he had seen his mother carrying firewood on her shoulders from the pine-woods near mansfeld. but it was in the monastic schools, no doubt, that he learned to be so shy and grave. he had been taught to look on married life as a low and evil thing; and, of course, we all know it cannot be so high and pure as the life in the convent. i remember now his look of wonder when aunt ursula, who is not fond of monks, said to him one day, "there is nothing on earth more lovely than the love of husband and wife, when it is in the fear of god." in the warmth of her bright and sunny heart, his whole nature seemed to open like the flowers in summer. and now there is none in all our circle so popular and sociable as he is. he plays on the lute, and sings as we think no one else can. and our children all love him, he tells them such strange, beautiful stories about enchanted gardens and crusaders, and about his own childhood, among the pine-forests and the mines. it is from martin luther, indeed, that i have heard more than from any one else, except from our grandmother, of the great world beyond eisenach. he has lived already in three other towns, so that he is quite a traveller, and knows a great deal of the world, although he is not yet twenty. our father has certainly told us wonderful things about the great islands beyond the seas which the admiral columbus discovered, and which will one day, he is sure, be found to be only the other side of the indies and tokay and araby. already the spaniards have found gold in those islands, and our father has little doubt that they are the ophir from which king solomon's ships brought the gold for the temple. also, he has told us about the strange lands in the south, in africa, where the dwarfs live, and the black giants, and the great hairy men who climb the trees and make nests there, and the dreadful men-eaters, and the people who have their heads between their shoulders. but we have not yet met with any one who have seen all those wonders, so that martin luther and our grandmother are the greatest travellers fritz and i are acquainted with. martin was born at eisleben. his mother's is a burgher family. three of her brothers live here at eisenach, and here she was married. but his father came of a peasant race. his grandfather had a little farm of his own at mora, among the thuringian pine-forests; but martin's father was the second son; their little property went to the eldest, and he became a miner, went to eisleben, and then settled at mansfeld, near the hartz mountains where the silver and copper lie buried in the earth. at mansfeld martin lived until he was nineteen. i should like to see the place. it must be so strange to watch the great furnaces, where they fuse the copper and smelt the precious silver, gleaming through the pine woods, for they burn all through the night in the clearings of the forest. when martin was a little boy he may have watched by them with his father, who now has furnaces and a foundry of his own. then there are the deep pits under the hills, out of which come from time to time troops of grim-looking miners. martin is fond of the miners; they are such a brave and hardy race, and they have fine bold songs and choruses of their own which he can sing, and wild original pastimes. chess is a favorite game with them. they are thoughtful too, as men may well be who dive into the secrets of the earth. martin, when a boy, has often gone into the dark, mysterious pits and winding caverns with them, and seen the veins of precious ore. he has also often seen foreigners of various nations. they come from all parts of the world to mansfeld for the silver,--from bavaria and switzerland, and even from the beautiful venice, which is a city of palaces, where the streets are canals filled by the blue sea, and instead of waggons they use boats, from which people land on the marble steps of the palaces. all these things martin has heard described by those who have really seen them, besides what he has seen himself. his father also frequently used to have the schoolmasters and learned men at his house, that his sons might profit by their wise conversation. but i doubt if he can have enjoyed this so much. it must have been difficult to forget the rod with which once he was beaten fourteen times in one morning, so as to feel sufficiently at ease to enjoy their conversation. old count gunther of mansfeld thinks much of martin's father, and often used to send for him to consult him about the mines. their house at mansfeld stood at some distance from the school-house which was on the hill, so that, when he was little, an older boy used to be kind to him, and carry him in his arms to school. i daresay that was in winter, when his little feet were swollen with chilblains, and his poor mother used to go up to the woods to gather faggots for the hearth. his mother must be a very good and holy woman, but not, i fancy, quite like our mother; rather more like aunt agnes. i think i should have been rather afraid of her. martin says she is very religious. he honours and loves her very much, although she was very strict with him, and once, he told fritz, beat him, for taking a nut from their stores, until the blood came. she must be a brave, truthful woman, who would not spare herself or others; but i think i should have felt more at home with his father, who used so often to kneel beside martin's bed at night, and pray god to make him a good and useful man. martin's father, however, does not seem so fond of the monks and nuns, and is therefore, i suppose, not so religious as his mother is. he does not at all wish martin to become a priest or a monk, but to be a great lawyer, or doctor, or professor at some university. mansfeld, however, is a very holy place. there are many monasteries and nunneries there, and in one of them two of the countesses were nuns. there is also a castle there, and our st. elizabeth worked miracles there as well as here. the devil also is not idle at mansfeld. a wicked old witch lived close to martin's house, and used to frighten and distress his mother much, bewitching the children so that they nearly cried themselves to death. once even, it is said, the devil himself got up into the pulpit, and preached, of course in disguise. but in all the legends it is the same. the devil never seems so busy as where the saints are, which is another reason why i feel how difficult it would be to be religious. martin had a sweet voice, and loved music as a child, and he used often to sing at people's doors as he did here. once, at christmas time, he was singing carols from village to village among the woods with other boys, when a peasant came to the door of his hut, where they were singing, and said in a loud gruff voice, "where are you, boys?" the children were so frightened that they scampered away as fast as they could, and only found out afterwards that the man with a rough voice had a kind heart, and had brought them out some sausages. poor martin was used to blows in those days, and had good reason to dread them. it must have been pleasant, however, to hear the boys' voices carolling through the woods about jesus born at bethlehem. voices echo so strangely among the silent pine-forests. when martin was thirteen he left mansfeld and went to magdeburg, where the archbishop ernest lives, the brother of our elector, who has a beautiful palace, and twelve trumpeters to play to him always when he is at dinner. magdeburg must be a magnificent city, very nearly, we think, as grand as rome itself. there is a great cathedral there, and knights and princes and many soldiers, who prance about the streets; and tournaments and splendid festivals. but our martin heard more than he saw of all this. he and john reineck of mansfeld (a boy older than himself, who is one of his greatest friends), went to the school of the franciscan cloister, and had to spend their time with the monks, or sing about the streets for bread, or in the church-yard when the franciscans in their grey robes went there to fulfill their office of burying the dead. but it was not for him, the miner's son, to complain, when, as he says, he used to see a prince of anhalt going about the streets in a cowl begging bread, with a sack on his shoulders like a beast of burden, insomuch that he was bowed to the ground. the poor prince, martin said, had fasted and watched and mortified his flesh until he looked like an image of death, with only skin and bones. indeed, shortly after he died. at magdeburg also, martin saw the picture of which he has often told us. "a great ship was painted, meant to signify the church, wherein there was no layman, not even a king or prince. there were none but the pope with his cardinals and bishops in the prow, with the holy ghost hovering over them, the priests and monks with their oars at the side; and thus they were sailing on heavenward. the laymen were swimming along in the water around the ship. some of them were drowning; some were drawing themselves up to the ship by means of ropes, which the monks, moved with pity, and making over their own good works, did cast out to them to keep them from drowning, and to enable them to cleave to the vessel and to go with the others to heaven. there was no pope, nor cardinal, nor bishop, nor priest, nor monk in the water, but laymen only." it must have been a very dreadful picture, and enough to make any one afraid of not being religious, or else to make one feel how useless it is for any one except the monks and nuns, to try to be religious at all. because however little merit any one had acquired, some kind monk might still be found to throw a rope out of the ship and help him in; and, however many good works any layman might do, they would be of no avail to help him out of the flood, or even to keep him from drowning, unless he had some friends in a cloister. i said martin was merry; and so he is, with the children, or when he is cheered with music or singing. and yet, on the whole, i think he is rather grave, and often he looks very thoughtful, and even melancholy. his merriment does not seem to be so much from carelessness as from earnestness of heart, so that whether he is telling a story to the little ones, or singing a lively song, his whole heart is in it,--in his play as well as in his work. in his studies fritz says there is no one at eisenach who can come near him, whether in reciting, or writing prose or verse, or translating, or church music. master trebonius, the head of st. george's school, is a very learned man and very polite. he takes off his hat, fritz says, and bows to his scholars when he enters the school, for he says that "among these boys are future burgomasters, chancellors, doctors, and magistrates." this must be very different from the masters at mansfeld. master trebonius thinks very much of martin. i wonder if he and fritz will be burgomasters or doctors one day. martin is certainly very religious for a boy, and so is fritz. they attend mass very regularly, and confession, and keep the fasts. from what i have heard martin say, however, i think he is as much afraid of god and christ and the dreadful day of wrath and judgment as i am. indeed i am sure he feels, as every one must, there would be no hope for us were it not for the blessed mother of god who may remind her son how she nursed and cared for him, and move him to have some pity. but martin has been at the university of erfurt nearly two years, and fritz has now left us to study there with him; and we shall have no more music, and the children no more stories until no one knows when. * * * * * these are the people i know. i have nothing else to say except about the things i possess, and the place we live in. the things are easily described. i have a silver reliquary, with a lock of the hair of st. elizabeth in it. that is my greatest treasure. i have a black rosary with a large iron cross which aunt agnes gave me. i have a missal, and part of a volume of the nibelungen lied; and besides my every-day dress, a black taffetas jacket and a crimson stuff petticoat, and two gold ear-rings, and a silver chain for holidays, which aunt ursula gave me. fritz and i between us have also a copy of some old latin hymns, with woodcuts, printed at nürnberg. and in the garden i have two rose bushes; and i have a wooden crucifix carved in rome out of wood which came from bethlehem, and in a leather purse one gulden my godmother gave me at my christening; and that is all. the place we live in is eisenach, and i think it a beautiful place. but never having seen any other town, perhaps i cannot very well judge. there are nine monasteries and nunneries here, many of them founded by st. elizabeth. and there are i do not know how many priests. in the churches are some beautiful pictures of the sufferings and glory of the saints; and painted windows, and on the altars gorgeous gold and silver plate, and a great many wonderful relics which we go to adore on the great saint's days. the town is in a valley, and high above the houses rises the hill on which stands the wartburg, the castle where st. elizabeth lived. i went inside it once with our father to take some books to the elector. the rooms were beautifully furnished with carpets and velvet-covered chairs. a lady dressed in silk and jewels, like st. elizabeth in the pictures, gave me sweetmeats. but the castle seemed to me dark and gloomy. i wondered which was the room in which the proud mother of the landgrave lived, who was so discourteous to st. elizabeth when she came a young maiden from her royal home far away in hungary; and which was the cold wall against which she pressed her burning brow, when she rushed through the castle in despair on hearing suddenly of the death of her husband. i was glad to escape into the free forest again, for all around the castle, and over all the hills, as far as we can see around eisenach, it is forest. the tall dark pine woods clothe the hills; but in the valleys the meadows are very green beside the streams. it is better in the valleys among the wild flowers than in that stern old castle, and i did not wonder so much after being there that st. elizabeth built herself a hut in a lowly valley among the woods, and preferred to live and die there. it is beautiful in summer in the meadows, at the edge of the pine woods, when the sun brings out the delicious aromatic perfume of the pines, and the birds sing, and the rooks caw. i like it better than the incense in st. george's church, and almost better than the singing of the choir, and certainly better than the sermons which are so often about the dreadful fires and the judgment-day, or the confessional where they give us such hard penances. the lambs, and the birds, and even the insects, seem so happy, each with its own little bleat, or warble, or coo, or buzz of content. it almost seems then as if mary, the dear mother of god, were governing the world instead of christ, the judge, or the almighty with the thunders. every creature seems so blithe and so tenderly cared for i cannot help feeling better there than at church. but that is because i have so little religion. ii. extracts from friedrich's chronicle. erfurt, . at last i stand on the threshold of the world i have so long desired to enter. elsè's world is mine no longer; and yet, never until this week did i feel how dear that little home-world is to me. indeed, heaven forbid i should have left it finally. i look forward to returning to it again, nevermore, however, as a burden on our parents, but as their stay and support, to set our mother free from the cares which are slowly eating her precious life away, to set our father free to pursue his great projects, and to make our little elsè as much a lady as any of the noble baronesses our grandmother tells us of. although, indeed, as it is, when she walks beside me to church on holidays, in her crimson dress, with her round, neat, little figure in the black jacket with the white stomacher, and the silver chains, her fair hair so neatly braided, and her blue eyes so full of sunshine,--who can look better than elsè? and i can see i am not the only one in eisenach who thinks so. i would only wish to make all the days holidays for her, and that it should not be necessary when the festival is over for my little sister to lay aside all her finery so carefully in the great chest, and put on her aschputtel garments again, so that if the fairy prince we used to talk of, were to come, he would scarcely recognise the fair little princess he had seen at church. and yet no fairy prince need be ashamed of our elsè even in her working, every-day clothes;--he certainly would not be the right one if he were. in the twilight, when the day's work is done, and the children are asleep, and she comes and sits beside me with her knitting in the lumber-room or under the pear tree in the garden, what princess could look fresher or neater than elsè, with her smooth fair hair braided like a coronet? who would think that she had been toiling all day, cooking, washing, nursing the children. except, indeed, because of the healthy colour her active life gives her face, and for that sweet low voice of hers, which i think women learn best by the cradles of little children. i suppose it is because i have never yet seen any maiden to compare to our elsè that i have not yet fallen in love. and, nevertheless, it is not of such a face as elsè's i dream, when dreams come, or even exactly such as my mother's. my mother's eyes are dimmed with many cares; is it not that very worn and faded brow that makes her sacred to me? more sacred than any saintly halo! and elsè, good, practical little elsè, she is a dear household fairy; but the face i dream of has another look in it. elsè's eyes are good, as she says, for seeing and helping; and sweet, indeed, they are for loving--dear, kind, true eyes. but the eyes i dream of have another look, a fire like our grandmother's, as if from a southern sun; dim, dreamy, far-seeing glances, burning into the hearts, like the ladies in the romances, and yet piercing into heaven, like st. cecilia's when she stands entranced by her organ. she should be a saint, at whose feet i might sit and look through her pure heart into heaven, and yet she should love me wholly, passionately, fearlessly, devotedly, as if her heaven were all in my love. my love! and who am i that i should have such dreams? a poor burgher lad of eisenach, a penniless student of a week's standing at erfurt! the eldest son of a large destitute family, who must not dare to think of loving the most perfect maiden, in the world, when i meet her, until i have rescued a father, mother, and six brothers and sisters from the jaws of biting poverty. and even in a dream it seems almost a treachery to put any creature above elsè. i fancy i see her kind blue eyes filling with reproachful tears. for there is no doubt that in elsè's heart i have no rival, even in a dream. poor, loving, little elsè! yes, she must be rescued from the pressure of those daily fretting cares of penury and hope deferred, which have made our mother old so early. if i had been in the father's place, i could never have borne to see winter creeping so soon over the summer of her life. but he does not see it. or if for a moment her pale face and the grey hairs which begin to come seem to trouble him, he kisses her forehead, and says, "little mother, it will soon be over; there is nothing wanting now but the last link to make this last invention perfect, and then--" and then he goes into his printing-room; but to this day the missing link has never been found. elsè and our mother, however, always believe it will turn up some day. our grandmother has doubts. and i have scarcely any hope at all, although, for all the world, i would not breathe this to any one at home. to me that laboratory of my father's, with its furnace, its models, its strange machines, is the most melancholy place in the world. it is like a haunted chamber,--haunted with the helpless, nameless ghosts of infants that have died at their birth,--the ghosts of vain and fruitless projects; like the ruins of a city that some earthquake had destroyed before it was finished, ruined palaces that were never roofed, ruined houses that were never inhabited, ruined churches that were never worshipped in. the saints forbid that my life should be like that! and yet what it is which has made him so unsuccessful, i can never exactly make out. he is no dreamer. he is no idler. he does not sit lazily down with folded arms and imagine his projects. he makes his calculations with the most laborious accuracy; he consults all the learned men and books he has access to. he weighs, and measures, and constructs the neatest models possible. his room is a museum of exquisite models, which seem as if they must answer, and yet never do. the professors, and even the elector's secretary, who has come more than once to consult him, have told me he is a man of remarkable genius. what can it be, then, that makes his life such a failure? i cannot think; unless it is that other great inventors and discoverers seem to have made their discoveries and inventions as it were _by the way_, in the course of their every-day life. as a seaman sails on his appointed voyage to some definite port, he notices drift-wood or weeds which must have come from unknown lands beyond the seas. as he sails in his calling from port to port, the thought is always in his mind; everything he hears groups itself naturally around this thought; he observes the winds and currents; he collects information from mariners who have been driven out of their course, in the direction where he believes this unknown land to lie. and at length he persuades some prince that his belief is no mere dream, and like the great admiral christopher columbus, he ventures across the trackless unknown atlantic and discovers the western indies. but before he was a discoverer, he was a mariner. or some engraver of woodcuts thinks of applying his carved blocks to letters, and the printing-press is invented. but it is in his calling. he has not gone out of his way to hunt for inventions. he has found them in his path, the path of his daily calling. it seems to me people do not become great, do not become discoverers and inventors by trying to be so, but by determining to do in the very best way what they have to do. thus improvements suggest themselves, one by one, step by step; each improvement is tested as it is made by practical use, until at length the happy thought comes, not like an elf from the wild forest, but like an angel on the daily path; and the little improvements become the great invention. there is another great advantage, moreover, in this method over our father's. if the invention never comes, at all events we have the improvements, which are worth something. every one cannot invent the printing-press or discover the new indies; but every engraver may make his engravings a little better, and every mariner may explore a little further than his predecessors. yet it seems almost like treason to write thus of our father. what would elsè or our mother think, who believe there is nothing but accident or the blindness of mankind between us and greatness? not that they have learned to think thus from our father. never in my life did i hear him say a grudging or depreciating word of any of those who have most succeeded where he has failed. he seems to look on all such men as part of a great brotherhood, and to rejoice in another man hitting the point which he missed, just as he would rejoice in himself succeeding in something to-day which he failed in yesterday. it is this nobleness of character which makes me reverence him more than any mere successes could. it is because i fear, that in a life of such disappointments my character would not prove so generous, but that failure would sour my temper and penury degrade my spirit as they never have his, that i have ventured to search for the rocks on which he made shipwreck, in order to avoid them. all men cannot return wrecked, and tattered, and destitute from an unsuccessful voyage, with a heart as hopeful, a temper as generous, a spirit as free from envy and detraction, as if they brought the golden fleece with them. our father does this again and again; and therefore i trust his argosies are laid up for him as for those who follow the rules of evangelical perfection, where neither moth nor rust can corrupt. i could not. i would never return until i could bring what i had sought, or i should return a miserable man, shipwrecked in heart as well as in fortune. and therefore i must examine my charts, and choose my port and my vessel carefully, before i sail. all these thoughts came into my mind as i stood on the last height of the forest, from which i could look back on eisenach, nestling in the valley under the shadow of the wartburg. may the dear mother of god, st. elizabeth, and all the saints, defend it evermore! but there was not much time to linger for a last view of eisenach. the winter days were short; some snow had fallen in the previous night. the roofs of the houses in eisenach were white with it, and the carvings of spire and tower seemed inlaid with alabaster. a thin covering lay on the meadows and hill-sides, and light feather-work frosted the pines. i had nearly thirty miles to walk through forest and plain before i reached erfurt. the day was as bright and the air as light as my heart. the shadows of the pines lay across the frozen snow, over which my feet crunched cheerily. in the clearings, the outline of the black twigs were pencilled dark and clear against the light blue of the winter sky. every outline was clear, and crisp, and definite, as i resolved my own aims in life should be. i knew my purposes were pure and high, and i felt as if heaven must prosper me. but as the day wore on, i began to wonder when the forest would end, until, as the sun sank lower and lower, i feared i must have missed my way; and at last as i climbed a height to make a survey, to my dismay it was too evident i had taken the wrong turning in the snow. wide reaches of the forest lay all around me, one pine-covered hill folding over another; and only in one distant opening could i get a glimpse of the level land beyond, where i knew erfurt must lie. the daylight was fast departing; my wallet was empty. i knew there were villages hidden in the valleys here and there; but not a wreath of smoke could i see, nor any sign of man, except here and there faggots piled in some recent clearing. towards one of these clearings i directed my steps, intending to follow the wood-cutters' track, which i thought would probably lead me to the hut of some charcoal burner, where i might find fire and shelter. before i reached this spot, however, night had set in. the snow began to fall again, and it seemed too great a risk to leave the broader path to follow any unknown track. i resolved, therefore, to make the best of my circumstances. they were not unendurable. i had a flint and tinder, and gathering some dry wood and twigs, i contrived with some difficulty to light a fire. cold and hungry i certainly was, but for this i cared little. it was only an extra fast, and it seemed to me quite natural that my journey of life should commence with difficulty and danger. it was always so in legend of the saints, romance, or elfin tale, or when anything great was to be done. but in the night, as the wind howled through the countless stems of the pines, not with the soft varieties of sound it makes amidst the summer oak-woods, but with a long monotonous wail like a dirge, a tumult awoke in my heart such as i had never known before. i knew these forests were infested by robber-bands, and i could hear in the distance the baying and howling of the wolves; but it was not fear which tossed my thoughts so wildly to and fro, at least not fear of bodily harm. i thought of all the stories of wild huntsmen, of wretched guilty men, hunted by packs of fiends; and the stories which had excited a wild delight in elsè and me, as our grandmother told them by the fire at home, now seemed to freeze my soul with horror. for was not i a guilty creature, and were not the devils indeed too really around me?--and what was to prevent their possessing me? who in all the universe was on my side? could i look up with confidence to god? he loves only the holy. or to christ? he is the judge; and more terrible than any cries of legions of devils will it be to the sinner to hear his voice from the awful snow-white throne of judgment. then, my sins rose before me--my neglected prayers, penances imperfectly performed, incomplete confessions. even that morning, had i not been full of proud and ambitious thoughts--even perhaps vainly comparing myself with my good father, and picturing myself as conquering and enjoying all kinds of worldly delights? it was true, it could hardly be a sin to wish to save my family from penury and care; but it was certainly a sin to be ambitious of worldly distinction, as father christopher had so often told me. then, how difficult to separate the two? where did duty end, and ambition and pride begin? i determined to find a confessor as soon as i reached erfurt, if ever i reached it. and yet, what could even the wisest confessor do for me in such difficulties? how could i ever be sure that i had not deceived myself in examining my motives, and then deceived him, and thus obtained an absolution on false pretences, which could avail me nothing? and if this might be so with future confessions, why not with all past ones? the thought was horror to me, and seemed to open a fathomless abyss of misery yawning under my feet. i could no more discover a track out of my miserable perplexities than out of the forest. for if these apprehensions had any ground, not only the sins i had failed to confess were unpardoned, but the sins i had confessed and obtained absolution for on false grounds. thus it might be that at that moment my soul stood utterly unsheltered, as my body from the snows, exposed to the wrath of god, the judgment of christ, and the exulting cruelty of devils. it seemed as if only one thing could save me, and that could never be had. if i could find an infallible confessor, who could see down into the depth of my heart, and back into every recess of my life, who could unveil me to myself, penetrate all my motives, and assign me the penances i really deserved, i would travel to the end of the world to find him. the severest penances he could assign, after searching the lives of all the holy eremites and martyrs, for examples of mortification, it seemed to me would be light indeed, if i could only be sure they were the right penances and would be followed by a true absolution. but this it was, indeed, impossible i could ever find. what sure hope then could i ever have of pardon or remission of sins? what voice of priest or monk, the holiest on earth, could ever assure me i had been honest with myself? what absolution could ever give me a right to believe that the baptismal robes, soiled as they told me "before i had left off my infant socks," could once more be made white and clean? then, for the first time in my life the thought flashed on me, of the monastic vows, the cloister and the cowl. i knew there was a virtue in the monastic profession which many said was equal to a second baptism. could it be possible that the end of all my aspirations might after all be the monk's frock? what then would become of father and mother, dear elsè, and the little ones? the thought of their dear faces seemed for an instant to drive away these gloomy fears, as they say a hearth-fire keeps off the wolves. but then a hollow voice seemed to whisper, "if god is against you, and the saints, and your conscience, what help can you render your family or any one else?" the conflict seemed more than i could bear. it was so impossible to me to make out which suggestions were from the devil and which from god, and which from my own sinful heart; and yet it might be the unpardonable sin to confound them. wherefore for the rest of the night i tried not to think at all, but paced up and down reciting the ten commandments, the creed, the paternoster, the ave maria, the litanies of the saints, and all the collects and holy ejaculations i could think of. by degrees this seemed to calm me, especially the creeds and the paternoster, whether because these are spells the fiends especially dread, or because there is something so comforting in the mere words, "our father," and "the remission of sins," i do not know. probably for both reasons. and so the morning dawned, and the low sunbeams slanted up through the red stems of the pines; and i said the ave maria, and thought of the sweet mother of god, and was a little cheered. but all the next day i could not recover from the terrors of that solitary night. a shadow seemed to have fallen on my hopes and projects. how could i tell that all which had seemed most holy to me as an object in life might not be temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil; and that with all my labouring for my dear ones at home, my sins might not bring on them more troubles than all my successes could avert? as i left the shadow of the forest, however, my heart seemed to grow lighter. i shall always henceforth feel sure that the wildest legends of the forests may be true, and that the fiends have especial haunts among the solitary woods at night. it was pleasant to see the towers of erfurt rising before me on the plain. i had only one friend at the university; but that is martin luther, and he is a host in himself to me. he is already distinguished among the students here; and the professors expect great things of him. he is especially studying jurisprudence, because his father wishes him to be a great lawyer. this also is to be my profession, and his counsel, always so heartily given, is of the greatest use to me. his life is, indeed, changed since we first knew him at eisenach, when aunt ursula took compassion on him, a destitute scholar, singing at the doors of the houses in st. george street for a piece of bread. his father's hard struggles to maintain and raise his family have succeeded at last; he is now the owner of a foundry and some smelting-furnaces, and supports martin liberally at the university. the icy morning of martin's struggles seems over, and all is bright before him. erfurt is the first university in germany. compared with it, as martin luther says, the other universities are mere private academies. at present we have from a thousand to thirteen hundred students. some of our professors have studied the classics in italy, under the descendents of the ancient greeks and romans. the elector frederic has, indeed, lately founded a new university at wittemberg, but we at erfurt have little fear of wittemberg outstripping our ancient institution. the humanists, or disciples of the ancient heathen learning, are in great force here, with mutianus rufus at their head. they meet often, especially at his house, and he gives them subjects for latin versification, such as the praises of poverty. martin luther's friend spalatin joined these assemblies; but he himself does not, at least not as a member. indeed, strange things are reported of their converse, which make the names of poet and philosopher in which they delight very much suspected in orthodox circles. these ideas mutianus and his friends are said to have imported with the classical literature from italy. he has even declared and written in a letter to a friend, that "there is but one god, and one goddess, although under various forms and various names, as jupiter, sol, apollo, moses, christ; luna, ceres, proserpine, tellus, mary." but these things he warns his disciples not to speak of in public. "they must be veiled in silence," he says, "like the eleusinian mysteries. in the affairs of religion we must make use of the mask of fables and enigmas. let us by the grace of jupiter, that is of the best and highest god, despise the lesser gods. when i say jupiter, i mean christ and the true god." mutianus and his friends also in their intimate circles speak most slightingly of the church ceremonies, calling the mass a comedy, and the holy relics ravens' bones;[ ] speaking of the service of the altar as so much lost time: and stigmatizing the prayers at the canonical hours as a mere baying of hounds, or the humming, not of busy bees, but of lazy drones. if you reproached them with such irreverent sayings, they would probably reply that they had only uttered them in an esoteric sense, and meant nothing by them. but when people deem it right thus to mask their truths, and explain away their errors, it is difficult to distinguish which is the mask and which the reality in their estimation. it seems to me also that they make mere intellectual games or exercises out of the most profound and awful questions. [footnote : that is, skeletons left on the gallows for the ravens to peck at.] this probably, more than the daring character of their speculations, deters martin luther from numbering himself among them. his nature is so reverent in spite of all the courage of his character. i think he would dare or suffer anything for what he believed true; but he cannot bear to have the poorest fragment of what he holds sacred trifled with or played with as a mere feat of intellectual gymnastics. his chief attention is at present directed, by his father's especial desire, to roman literature and law, and to the study of the allegories and philosophy of aristotle. he likes to have to do with what is true and solid; poetry and music are his delight and recreation. but it is in debate he most excels. a few evenings since, he introduced me to a society of students, where questions new and old are debated and it was glorious to see how our martin carried off the palm; sometimes swooping down on his opponents like an eagle among a flock of small birds, or setting down his great lion's paw and quietly crushing a host of objections, apparently unaware of the mischief he had done, until some feeble wail of the prostrate foe made him sensible of it, and he withdrew with a good-humored apology for having hurt any one's feelings. at other times he withers an unfair argument or a confused statement to a cinder by some lightning-flash of humor or satire. i do not think he is often perplexed by seeing too much of the other side of a disputed question. he holds the one truth he is contending for, and he sees the one point he is aiming at, and at that he charges with a force compounded of the ponderous weight of his will, and the electric velocity of his thoughts, crushing whatever comes in his way, scattering whatever escapes right and left, and never heeding how the scattered forces may reunite and form in his rear. he knows that if he only turns on them, in a moment they will disperse again. i cannot quite tell how this style of warfare would answer for an advocate, who had to make the best of any cause he is engaged to plead. i cannot fancy martin luther quietly collecting the arguments from the worst side, to the end that even the worst side may have fair play; which is, i suppose, often the office of an advocate. no doubt, however, he will find or make his calling in the world. the professors and learned men have the most brilliant expectations as to his career. and what is rare (they say), he seems as much the favorite of the students as of the professors. his nature is so social; his musical abilities and his wonderful powers of conversation make him popular with all. and yet, underneath it all, we who know him well can detect at times that tide of thoughtful melancholy, which seems to lie at the bottom of all hearts which have looked deeply into themselves or into life. he is as attentive as ever to religion, never missing the daily mass. but in our private conversations, i see that his conscience is anything but at ease. has he passed through conflicts such as mine in the forest on that terrible night? perhaps through conflicts as much fiercer and more terrible, as his character is stronger and his mind deeper than mine. but who can tell? what is the use of unfolding perplexities to each other, which it seems no intellect on earth can solve? the inmost recesses of the heart must always, i suppose, be a solitude, like that dark and awful sanctuary within the veil of the old jewish temple, entered only once a year, and faintly illumined by the light without, through the thick folds of the sacred veil. if only that solitude were indeed a holy of holies--or, being what it is, if we only need enter it once a year, and not carry about the consciousness of its dark secrets with us everywhere. but, alas! once entered we can never forget it. it is like the chill, dark crypts underneath our churches, where the masses for the dead are celebrated, and where in some monastic churches the embalmed corpses lie shrivelled to mummies, and visible through gratings. through all the joyous festivals of the holidays above, the consciousness of those dark chambers of death below seems to creep up; like the damps of the vaults through the incense, like the muffled wail of the dirges through the songs of praise. erfurt, _april_, . we are just returned from an expedition which might have proved fatal to martin luther. early in the morning, three days since, we started to walk to mansfeld on a visit to his family, our hearts as full of hope as the woods were full of song. we were armed with swords; our wallets were full; and spirits light as the air. our way was to lie through field and forest, and then along the banks of the river holme, through the golden meadow where are so many noble cloisters and imperial palaces. but we had scarcely been on our way an hour when martin, by some accident, ran his sword into his foot. to my dismay the blood gushed out in a stream. he had cut into a main artery. i left him under the care of some peasants, and ran back to erfurt for a physician. when he arrived, however, there was great difficulty in closing the wound with bandages. i longed for elsè or our mother's skillful fingers. we contrived to carry him back to the city. i sat up to watch with him. but in the middle of the night his wound burst out bleeding afresh. the danger was very great, and martin himself giving up hope, and believing death was close at hand, committed his soul to the blessed mother of god. merciful and pitiful, knowing sorrow, yet raised glorious above all sorrow, with a mother's heart for all, and a mother's claim on him who is the judge of all, where indeed can we so safely flee for refuge as to mary? it was edifying to see martin's devotion to her, and no doubt it was greatly owing to this that at length the remedies succeeded, the bandages closed the wound again, and the blood was stanched. many an ave will i say for this to the sweet mother of mercy. perchance she may also have pity on me. o sweetest lady, "eternal daughter of the eternal father, heart of the indivisible trinity," thou seest my desire to help my own careworn mother; aid me, and have mercy on me, thy sinful child. erfurt, _june_, . martin luther has taken his first degree. he is a fervent student, earnest in this as in everything. cicero and virgil are his great companions among the latins. he is now raised quite above the pressing cares of penury, and will probably never taste them more. his father is now a prosperous burgher of mansfeld, and on the way to become burgomaster. i wish the prospects at my home were as cheering. a few years less of pinching poverty for myself seems to matter little, but the cares of our mother and elsè weigh on me often heavily. it must be long yet before i can help them effectually, and meantime the bright youth of my little elsè, and the very life of our toilworn patient mother, will be wearing away. for myself i can fully enter into what martin says, "the young should learn especially to endure suffering and want; for such suffering doth them no harm. it doth more harm for one to prosper without toil than it doth to endure suffering." he says also, "it is god's way, of beggars to make men of power, just as he made the world out of nothing. look upon the courts of kings and princes, upon cities and parishes. you will there find jurists, doctors, councillors, secretaries, and preachers who were commonly poor, and always such as have been students, and have risen and flown so high through the quill that they are become lords." but the way to wealth through the quill seems long; and lives so precious to me are being worn out meantime, while i climb to the point where i could help them! sometimes i wish i had chosen the calling of a merchant, men seem to prosper so much more rapidly through trade than through study; and nothing on earth seems to me so well worth working for as to lift the load from their hearts at home. but it is too late. rolling stones gather no moss. i must go on now in the track i have chosen. only sometimes again the fear which came over me on that night in the forest. it seems as if heaven were against me, and that it is vain presumption for such as i even to hope to benefit any one. partly, no doubt, it is the depression, caused by poor living, which brings these thoughts. martin luther said so to me one day when he found me desponding. he said he knew so well what it was. he had suffered so much from penury at magdeburg, and at eisenach had even seriously thought of giving up study altogether and returning to his father's calling. he is kind to me and to all who need, but his means do not yet allow him to do more than maintain himself. or rather, they are not his but his father's, and he feels he has no right to be generous at the expense of his father's self-denial and toil. i find life looks different, i must say, after a good meal. but then i cannot get rid of the thought of the few such meals they have at home. not that elsè writes gloomily. she never mentions a thing to sadden me. and this week she sent me a gulden, which she said belonged to her alone, and she had vowed never to use unless i would take it. but a student who saw them lately said our mother looked wan and ill. and to increase their difficulties, a month since the father received into the house a little orphan girl, a cousin of our mother's, called eva von schönberg. heaven forbid that i should grudge the orphan her crust, but when it makes a crust less for the mother and the little ones, it is difficult to rejoice in such an act of charity. erfurt, _july_, . i have just obtained a nomination on a foundation, which will, i hope, for the present at least, prevent my being any burden on my family for my own maintenance. the rules are very strict, and they are enforced with many awful vows and oaths which trouble my conscience not a little, because, if the least detail of these rules to which i have sworn is even inadvertently omitted, i involve myself in the guilt of perjury. however, it is a step onward in the way to independence; and a far heavier yoke might well be borne with such an object. we (the beneficiaries on this foundation) have solemnly vowed to observe the seven canonical hours, never omitting the prayers belonging to each. this insures early rising, which is a good thing for a student. the most difficult to keep is the midnight hour, after a day of hard study; but it is no more than soldiers on duty have continually to go through. we have also to chant the _miserere_ at funerals, and frequently to hear the eulogy of the blessed virgin mary. this last can certainly not be called a hardship, least of all to me who desire ever henceforth to have an especial devotion to our lady, to recite daily the rosary, commemorating the joys of mary, the salutation, the journey across the mountains, the birth without pain, the finding of jesus in the temple, and the ascension. it is only the vows which make it rather a bondage. but, indeed, in spite of all, it is a great boon. i can conscientiously write to elsè now, that i shall not need another penny of their scanty store, and can even, by the next opportunity, return what she sent, which, happily, i have not yet touched. _august_, . martin luther is very dangerously ill; many of the professors and students are in great anxiety about him. he has so many friends; and no wonder! he is no cold friend himself, and all expect great honour to the university from his abilities. i scarcely dare to think what his loss would be to me. but this morning an aged priest who visited him inspired us with some hope. as martin lay, apparently in the last extremity, and himself expecting death, this old priest came to his bed-side, and said gently, but in a firm tone of conviction,-- "be of good comfort, my brother, you will not die at this time; god will yet make a great man of you, who shall comfort many others. whom god loveth and proposeth to make a blessing, upon him he early layeth the cross, and in that school, who patiently endure learn much." the words came with a strange kind of power, and i cannot help thinking that there is a little improvement in the patient since they were uttered. truly, good words are like food and medicine to body and soul. erfurt, _august_, . martin luther is recovered! the almighty, the blessed mother, and all the saints be praised. the good old priest's words have also brought some especial comfort to me. if it could only be possible that those troubles and cares which have weighed so heavily on elsè's early life and mine, are not the rod of anger, but the cross laid on those god loveth! but who can tell? for elsè, at least, i will try to believe this. the world is wide in these days, with the great new world opened by the spanish mariners beyond the atlantic, and the noble old world opened to students through the sacred fountains of the ancient classics, once more unsealed by the revived study of the ancient languages; and this new discovery of printing, which will, my father thinks, diffuse the newly unsealed fountains of ancient wisdom in countless channels among high and low. these are glorious times to live in. so much already unfolded to us! and who knows what beyond? for it seems as if the hearts of men everywhere were beating high with expectation; as if, in these days, nothing were too great to anticipate, or too good to believe. it is well to encounter our dragons at the threshold of life; instead of at the end of the race--at the threshold of death; therefore, i may well be content. in this wide and ever widening world, there must be some career for me and mine. what will it be? and what will martin luther's be? much is expected from him. famous every one at the university says he must be. on what field will he win his laurels? will they be laurels or palms? when i hear him in the debates of the students, all waiting for his opinions, and applauding his eloquent words, i see the laurel already among his black hair, wreathing his massive, homely forehead. but when i remember the debate which i know there is within him, the anxious fervency of his devotions, his struggle of conscience, his distress at any omission of duty, and watch the deep melancholy look which there is sometimes in his dark eyes, i think not of the tales of the heroes, but of the legends of the saints, and wonder in what victory over the old dragon he will win his palm. but the bells are sounding for compline, and i must not miss the sacred hour. iii. elsè's chronicle. eisenach, . i cannot say that things have prospered much with us since fritz left. the lumber-room itself is changed. the piles of old books are much reduced, because we have been obliged to pawn many of them for food. some even of the father's beautiful models have had to be sold. it went terribly to his heart. but it paid our debts. our grandmother has grown a little querulous at times lately. and i am so tempted to be cross sometimes. the boys eat so much and wear out their clothes so fast. indeed, i cannot see that poverty makes any of us better, except it be my mother, who needed improvement least of all. _september_, . the father has actually brought a new inmate into the house, a little girl, called eva von schönberg, a distant cousin of our mother. last week he told us she was coming, very abruptly. i think he was rather afraid of what our grandmother would say, for we all know it is not of the least use to come round her with soft speeches. she always sees what you are aiming at, and with her keen eyes cuts straight through all your circumlocutions, and obliges you to descend direct on your point, with more rapidity than grace. accordingly, he said, quite suddenly, one day at dinner,-- "i forgot to tell you, little mother, i have just had a letter from your relations in bohemia. your great-uncle is dead. his son, you know, died before him. a little orphan girl is left with no one to take care of her. i have desired them to send her to us. i could do no less. it was an act, not of charity, but of the plainest duty. and besides," he added, apologetically, "in the end it may make our fortunes. there is property somewhere in the family, if we could get it; and this little eva is the descendant of the eldest branch. indeed, i do not know but that she may bring many valuable family heirlooms with her." these last observations he addressed especially to my grandmother, hoping thereby to make it clear to her that the act was one of the deepest worldly wisdom. then turning to the mother, he concluded,-- "little mother, thou wilt find a place for the orphan in thy heart, and heaven will no doubt bless us for it." "no doubt about the room in my daughter's heart!" murmured our grandmother; "the question, as i read it, is not about hearts, but about larders and wardrobes. and, certainly," she added, not very pleasantly, "there is room enough there for any family jewels the young heiress may bring." as usual, the mother came to the rescue. "dear grandmother," she said, "heaven, no doubt, will repay us; and besides, you know, we may now venture on a little more expense, since we are out of debt." "there is no doubt, i suppose," retorted our grandmother, "about heaven repaying you; but there seems to me a good deal of doubt whether it will be in current coin." then, i suppose fearing the effect of so doubtful a sentiment on the children, she added rather querulously, but in a gentler tone,-- "let the little creature come. room may be made for her soon in one way or another. the old creep out at the church-yard gate, while the young bound in at the front door." and in a few days little eva came; but, unfortunately without the family jewels. but the saints forbid i should grow mercenary or miserly, and grudge the orphan her crust! and who could help welcoming little eva? as she lies on my bed asleep, with her golden hair on the pillow, and the long lashes shading her cheek, flushed with sleep and resting on her dimpled white hand, who could wish her away? and when i put out the lamp (as i must very soon) and lie down beside her, she will half awake, just to nestle into my heart, and murmur in her sleep, "sweet cousin elsè!" and i shall no more be able to wish her gone than my guardian angel. indeed i think she is something like one. she is not quite ten years old; but being an only child, and always brought up with older people, she has a quiet, considerate way, and a quaint, thoughtful gravity, which sits with a strange charm on her bright, innocent, child-like face. at first she seemed a little afraid of our children, especially the boys, and crept about everywhere by the side of my mother, to whom she gave her confidence from the beginning. she did not so immediately take to our grandmother, who was not very warm in her reception; but the second evening after her arrival, she deliberately took her little stool up to our grandmother's side, and seating herself at her feet, laid her two little, soft hands on the dear, thin, old hands, and said,-- "you must love me, for i shall love you very much. you are like my great-aunt who died." and, strange to say, our grandmother seemed quite flattered; and ever since they have been close friends. indeed she commands us all, and there is not one in the house who does not seem to think her notice a favour. i wonder if fritz would feel the same! our father lets her sit in his printing-room when he is making experiments, which none of us ever dared to do. she perches herself on the window-sill, and watches him as if she understood it all, and he talks to her as if he thought she did. then she has a wonderful way of telling the legends of the saints to the children. when our grandmother tells them, i think of the saints as heroes and warriors. when i try to relate the sacred stories to the little ones, i am afraid i make them too much like fairy tales. but when little eva is speaking about st. agnes or st. catherine, her voice becomes soft and deep, like church music; and her face grave and beautiful, like one of the child-angels in the pictures; and her eyes as if they saw into heaven. i wish fritz could hear her. i think she must be just what the saints were when they were little children, except for that strange, quiet way she has of making every one do what she likes. if our st. elizabeth had resembled our little eva in that, i scarcely think the landgravine-mother would have ventured to have been so cruel to her. perhaps it is little eva who is to be the saint among us; and by helping her we may best please god, and be admitted at last to some humble place in heaven. eisenach, _december_. it is a great comfort that fritz writes in such good spirits. he seems full of hope as to his prospects, and already he has obtained a place in some excellent institution, where, he says, he lives like a cardinal, and is quite above wanting assistance from any one. this is very encouraging. martin luther, also, is on the way to be quite a great man, fritz says. it is difficult to imagine this; he looked so much like any one else, and we are all so completely at home with him, and he talks in such a simple, familiar way to us all--not in learned words, or about difficult, abstruse subjects, like the other wise men i know. certainly it always interests us all to hear him, but one can understand all he says--even i can; so that it is not easy to think of him as a philosopher and a great man. i suppose wise men must be like the saints: one can only see what they are when they are at some distance from us. what kind of great man will martin luther be, i wonder? as great as our burgomaster, or as master trebonius? perhaps even greater than these; as great, even, as the elector's secretary, who came to see our father about his inventions. but it is a great comfort to think of it, especially on fritz's account; for i am sure martin will never forget old friends. i cannot quite comprehend eva's religion. it seems to make her happy. i do not think she is afraid of god, or even of confession. she seems to enjoy going to church as if it were a holiday in the woods; and the name of jesus seems not terrible, but dear to her, as the name of the sweet mother of god is to me. this is very difficult to understand. i think she is not even very much afraid of the judgment-day; and this is the reason why i think so:--the other night, when we were both awakened by an awful thunder-storm, i hid my face under the clothes, in order not to see the flashes, until i heard the children crying in the next room, and rose of course, to soothe them, because our mother had been very tired that day, and was, i trusted, asleep. when i had sung and talked to the little ones, and sat by them till they were asleep, i returned to our room, trembling in every limb; but i found eva kneeling by the bed-side, with her crucifix pressed to her bosom, looking as calm and happy as if the lightning flashes had been morning sunbeams. she rose from her knees when i entered; and when i was once more safely in bed, with my arm around her, and the storm had lulled a little, i said,-- "eva, are you not afraid of the lightning?" "i think it might hurt us, cousin elsè," she said; "and that was the reason i was praying to god." "but, eva," i said, "supposing the thunder should be the archangel's voice! i always think every thunder-storm may be the beginning of the day of wrath--the dreadful judgment-day. what should you do then?" she was silent a little, and then she said,-- "i think i should take my crucifix and pray, and try to ask the lord christ to remember that he died on the cross for us once. i think he would take pity on us if we did. besides, cousin elsè," she added, after a pause, "i have a sentence which always comforts me. my father taught it me when i was a very little girl, in the prison, before he died. i could not remember it all, but this part i have never forgotten: '_god so loved the world, that he gave his only son._' there was more, which i forgot; but that bit i always remembered, because i was my father's only child, and he loved me so dearly. i do not quite know all it means; but i know they are god's words, but i feel sure that it means that god loves us very much, and that he is in some way like my father." "i know," i replied, "the creed says, 'god, the father almighty;' but i never thought that the almighty father meant anything like our own father. i thought it meant only that he is very great, and that we all belong to him, and that we ought to love him. are you sure, eva, it means _he loves us_?" "i believe so, cousin elsè," said eva. "perhaps it does mean that he loves _you_, eva," i answered. "but you are a good child, and always have been, i should think; and we all know that god loves people who are good. that sentence says nothing, you see, about god loving people who are not good. it is because i am never sure that i am doing the things that please him, that i am afraid of god and of the judgment-day." eva was silent a minute, and then she said,-- "i wish i could remember the rest of the sentence. perhaps it might tell." "where does that sentence come from, eva?" i asked. "perhaps we might find it. do you think god said it to your father from heaven, in a vision or a dream, as he speaks to the saints?" "i think not, cousin elsè," she replied thoughtfully; "because my father said it was in a book, which he told me where to find, when he was gone. but when i found the book, a priest took it from me, and said it was not a good book for little girls; and i never had it again. so i have only my sentence, cousin elsè. i wish it made you happy, as it does me." i kissed the darling child and wished her good night; but i could not sleep. i wish i could see the book. but perhaps, after all, it is not a right book; because (although eva does not know it) i heard my grandmother say her father was a hussite, and died on the scaffold for believing something wrong. in the morning eva was awake before me. her large dark eyes were watching me, and the moment i woke she said,-- "cousin elsè, i think the end of that sentence has something to do with the crucifix; because i always think of them together. you know the lord jesus christ is god's only son, and he died on the cross for us." and she rose and dressed, and said she would go to matins and say prayers for me, that i might not be afraid in the next thunder-storm. it must be true, i am sure, that the cross and the blessed passion were meant to do us some good; but then they can only do good to those who please god, and that is precisely what it is so exceedingly difficult to find out how to do. i cannot think, however, that eva can in any way be believing wrong, because she is so religious and so good. she attends most regularly at the confessional, and is always at church at the early mass, and many times besides. often, also, i find her at her devotions before the crucifix and the picture of the holy virgin and child in our room. she seems really to enjoy being religious, as they say st. elizabeth did. as for me, there is so very much to do between the printing, and the house, and our dear mother's ill health, and the baby, and the boys, who tear their clothes in such incomprehensible ways, that i feel more and more how utterly hopeless it is for me ever to be like any of the saints--unless, indeed, it is st. christopher, whose legend is often a comfort to me, as our grandmother used to tell it to us, which was in this way:-- offerus was a soldier, a heathen, who lived in the land of canaan. he had a body twelve ells long. he did not like to obey, but to command. he did not care what harm he did to others, but lived a wild life, attacking and plundering all who came in his way. he only wished for one thing--to sell his services to the mightiest; and as he heard that the emperor was in those days the head of christendom, he said, "lord emperor, will you have me? to none less will i sell my heart's blood." the emperor looked at his samson strength, his giant chest, and his mighty fists, and he said, "if thou wilt serve me for ever, offerus, i will accept thee." immediately the giant answered, "to serve you _for ever_ is not so easily promised; but as long as i am your soldier, none in east or west shall trouble you." thereupon he went with the emperor through all the land, and the emperor was delighted with him. all the soldiers, in the combat as at the wine-cup, were miserable, helpless creatures compared with offerus. now the emperor had a harper who sang from morning till bed-time; and whenever the emperor was weary with the march this minstrel had to touch his harp-strings. once, at eventide, they pitched the tents near a forest. the emperor ate and drank lustily; the minstrel sang a merry song. but as, in his song, he spoke of the evil one, the emperor signed the cross on his forehead. said offerus aloud to his comrades, "what is this? what jest is the prince making now?" then the emperor said, "offerus, listen: i did it on account of the wicked fiend, who is said often to haunt this forest with great rage and fury." that seemed marvellous to offerus, and he said, scornfully, to the emperor, "i have a fancy for wild boars and deer. let us hunt in this forest." the emperor said softly, "offerus, no! let alone the chase in this forest, for in filling thy larder thou mightst harm thy soul." then offerus made a wry face, and said, "the grapes are sour; if your highness is afraid of the devil, i will enter the service of this lord, who is mightier than you." thereupon he coolly demanded his pay, took his departure, with no very ceremonious leave-taking, and strode off cheerily into the thickest depths of the forest. in a wild clearing of the forest he found the devil's altar, built of black cinders: and on it, in the moonlight gleamed the white skeletons of men and horses. offerus was in no way terrified, but quietly inspected the skulls and bones; then he called three times in a loud voice on the evil one, and seating himself fell asleep, and soon began to snore. when it was midnight, the earth seemed to crack, and on a coal-black horse he saw a pitch-black rider, who rode at him furiously, and sought to bind him with solemn promises. but offerus said, "we shall see." then they went together through the kingdoms of the world, and offerus found him a better master than the emperor; needed seldom to polish his armour, but had plenty of feasting and fun. however, one day as they went along the high-road, three tall crosses stood before them. then the black prince suddenly had a cold, and said, "let us creep round by the bye-road." said offerus, "methinks you are afraid of those gallows trees," and, drawing his bow, he shot an arrow into the middle cross. "what bad manners!" said satan, softly; "do you not know that he who in his form as a servant is the son of mary, now exercises great power?" "if that is the case," said offerus, "i came to you fettered by no promise; now i will seek further for the mightiest, whom only i will serve." then satan went off with a mocking laugh, and offerus went on his way asking every traveller he met for the son of mary. but, alas! few bear him in their hearts; and no one could tell the giant where the lord dwelt, until one evening offerus found an old pious hermit, who gave him a night's lodging in his cell, and sent him next morning to the carthusian cloister. there the lord prior listened to offerus, showed him plainly the path of faith, and told him he must fast and pray, as john the baptist did of old in the wilderness. but he replied, "locusts and wild honey, my lord, are quite contrary to my nature, and i do not know any prayers. i should lose my strength altogether, and had rather not go to heaven at all in that way." "reckless man!" said the prior. "however, you may try another way: give yourself up heartily to achieve some good work." "ah! let me hear," said offerus; "i have strength for that." "see, there flows a mighty river, which hinders pilgrims on their way to rome. it has neither ford nor bridge. carry the faithful over on thy back." "if i can please the saviour in that way, willingly will i carry the travellers to and fro," replied the giant. and thereupon he built a hut of reeds, and dwelt thenceforth among the water-rats and beavers on the borders of the river, carrying pilgrims over the river cheerfully, like a camel or an elephant. but if any one offered him ferry-money, he said, "i labour for eternal life." and when now, after many years, offerus's hair had grown white, one stormy night a plaintive little voice called to him, "dear, good, tall offerus, carry me across." offerus was tired and sleepy, but he thought faithfully of jesus christ, and with weary arms seizing the pine trunk which was his staff when the floods swelled high, he waded through the water and nearly reached the opposite bank; but he saw no pilgrim there, so he thought, "i was dreaming," and went back and lay down to sleep again. but scarcely had he fallen asleep when again came the little voice, this time very plaintive and touching, "offerus, good, dear, great, tall offerus, carry me across." patiently the old giant crossed the river again, but neither man nor mouse was to be seen, and he went back and lay down again, and was soon fast asleep; when once more came the little voice, clear and plaintive, and imploring, "good, dear giant offerus, carry me across." the third time he seized his pine-stem and went through the cold river. this time he found a tender, fair little boy, with golden hair. in his left hand was the standard of the lamb; in his right, the globe. he looked at the giant with eyes full of love and trust, and offerus lifted him up with two fingers; but, when he entered the river, the little child weighed on him like a ton. heavier and heavier grew the weight, until the water almost reached his chin; great drops of sweat stood on his brow, and he had nearly sunk in the stream with the little one. however, he struggled through, and tottering to the other side, set the child gently down on the bank, and said, "my little lord, prithee, come not this way again, for scarcely have i escaped this time with life." but the fair child baptized offerus on the spot, and said to him, "know all thy sins are forgiven; and although thy limbs tottered, fear not, nor marvel, but rejoice; thou hast carried the saviour of the world! for a token, plant thy pine-trunk, so long dead and leafless, in the earth; to-morrow it shall shoot out green twigs. and henceforth thou shalt be called not offerus, but christopher." then christopher folded his hands and prayed and said, "i feel my end draws nigh. my limbs tremble; my strength fails; and god has forgiven me all my sins." thereupon the child vanished in light; and christopher set his staff into the earth. and so on the morrow, it shot out green leaves and red blossoms like an almond. and three days afterwards the angels carried christopher to paradise. this is the legend which gives me more hope than any other. how sweet it would be, if, when i had tried in some humble way to help one and another on the way to the holy city, when the last burden was borne, and the strength was failing, the holy child should appear to me and say, "little elsè, you have done the work i meant you to do--your sins are forgiven;" and then the angels were to come and take me up in their arms, and carry me across the dark river, and my life were to grow young and bloom again in paradise like st. christopher's withered staff! but to watch all the long days of life by the river, and carry the burdens, and not know if we are doing the right thing after all--that is what is so hard! sweet, when the river was crossed, to find that in fulfilling some little, humble, every-day duty, one had actually been serving and pleasing the mightiest, the saviour of the world! but if one could only know it _whilst one was_ struggling through the flood, how delightful that would be! how little one would mind the icy water, or the aching shoulders, or the tottering, failing limbs! eisenach, _january_, . fritz is at home with us again. he looks as much a man now as our father, with his moustache and his sword. how cheerful the sound of his firm step and his deep voice makes the house! when i look at him sometimes, as he tosses the children and catches them in his arms, or as he flings the balls with christopher and pollux, or shoots with bow and arrows in the evenings at the city games, my old wish recurs that he had lived in the days when our ancestors dwelt in the castles in bohemia, and that fritz had been a knight, to ride at the head of his retainers to battle for some good cause,--against the turks, for instance, who are now, they say, threatening the empire, and all christendom. my little world at home is wide indeed, and full enough for me, but this burgher life seems narrow and poor for him. i should like him to have to do with men instead of books. women can read, and learn, and think, if they have time (although, of course, not as well as men can); i have even heard of women writing books. st. barbara and st. catherine understood astronomy, and astrology, and philosophy, and could speak i do not know how many languages. but they could not have gone forth armed with shield and spear like st. george of cappadocia, to deliver the fettered princess and slay the great african dragon. and i should like fritz to do what women can_not_ do. there is such strength in his light, agile frame, and such power in his dark eyes; although, certainly after all he had written to us about his princely fare at the house at erfurt, where he is a beneficiary, our mother and i did not expect to have seen his face looking so hollow and thin. he has brought me back my godmother's gulden. he says he is an independent man, earning his own livelihood, and quite above receiving any such gratuities. however, as i devoted it to fritz i feel i have a right to spend it on him, which is a great comfort, because i can provide a better table than we can usually afford, during the few days he will stay with us, so that he may never guess how pinched we often are. i am ashamed of myself, but there is something in this return of fritz which disappoints me. i have looked forward to it day and night through all these two years with such longing. i thought we should begin again exactly where we left off. i pictured to myself the old daily life with him going on again as of old. i thought of our sitting in the lumber-room, and chatting over all our perplexities, our own and the family's, and pouring our hearts into each other's without reserve or fear, so that it was scarcely like talking at all, but like thinking aloud. and, now, instead of our being acquainted with every detail of each other's daily life, so that we are aware what we are feeling without speaking about it, there is a whole history of new experience to be narrated step by step, and we do not seem to know where to begin. none of the others can feel this as i do. he is all to the children and our parents that he ever was, and why should i expect more? indeed, i scarcely know what i did expect, or what i do want. why should fritz be more to me than to any one else? it is selfish to wish it, and it is childish to imagine that two years could bring no change. could i have wished it? do i not glory in his strength, and in his free and manly bearing! and could i wish a student at the great university of erfurt, who is soon to be a bachelor of arts, to come and sit on the piles of old books in our lumber-room, and to spend his time in gossiping with me? besides, what have i to say? and yet, this evening, when the twilight-hour came round for the third time since he returned, and he seemed to forget all about it, i could not help feeling troubled, and so took refuge here by myself. fritz has been sitting in the family-room for the last hour, with all the children round him, telling them histories of what the students do at erfurt; of their poetical club, where they meet and recite their own verses, or translations of the ancient books which have been unburied lately, and yet are fresher, he says, than any new ones, and set every one thinking; of the debating meeting, and the great singing parties where hundreds of voices join, making music fuller than any organ,--in both of which martin luther seems a leader and a prince; and then of the fights among the students, in which i do not think martin luther has joined, but which, certainly, interest christopher and pollux more than anything else. the boys were standing on each side of fritz, listening with wide open eyes; chriemhild and atlantis had crept close behind him with their sewing; little thekla was on his knee, playing with his sword-girdle; and little eva was perched in her favourite place on the window-sill, in front of him. at first she kept at a distance from him, and said nothing; not, i think, from shyness, for i do not believe that child is afraid of any one or any thing, but from a quaint way she has of observing people, as if she were learning them through like a new language, or, like a sovereign making sure of the character of a new subject before she admits him into her service. the idea of the little creature treating our fritz in that grand style! but it is of no use resisting it. he has passed through his probation like the rest of us, and is as much flattered as the grandmother, or any of us, at being admitted into her confidence. when i left, eva, who had been listening for some time with great attention to his student-stories, had herself become the chief speaker, and the whole party were attending with riveted interest while she related to them her favourite legend of st. catherine. they had all heard it before, but in some way when eva tells these histories they always seem new. i suppose it is because she believes them so fervently; it is not as if she were repeating something she had heard, but quietly narrating something she has seen, much as one would imagine an angel might who had been watching unseen while it all happened. and, meantime, her eyes, when she raises them, with their fringe of long lashes, seem to look at once into your heart and into heaven. no wonder fritz forgets the twilight-hour. but it is strange he has never once asked about our chronicle. of that, however, i am glad, because i would not for the world show him the narrative of our struggles. can it be possible i am envious of little eva--dear, little, loving, orphan eva? i do rejoice that all the world should love him. yet, it was so happy to be fritz's only friend; and why should a little stranger child steal my precious twilight-hour from me? well, i suppose aunt agnes was right, and i made an idol of fritz, and god was angry, and i am being punished. but the saints seemed to find a kind of sacred pleasure in their punishments, and i do not; nor do i feel at all the better for them, but the worse--which is another proof how hopeless it is for me to try to be a saint. eisenach, _february_. as i wrote those last words in the deepening twilight, two strong hands were laid very gently on my shoulders, and a voice said-- "sister elsè, _why_ can you not show me your chronicle?" i could make no reply. "you are convicted," rejoined the same voice. "do you think i do not know where that gulden came from? let me see your godmother's purse." i began to feel the tears choking me; but fritz did not seem to notice them. "elsè," he said, "you may practise your little deceptive arts on all the rest of the family, but they will not do with me. do you think you will ever persuade me you have grown thin by eating sausages and cakes and wonderful holiday puddings every day of your life? do you think the hungry delight in the eyes of those boys was occasioned by their every-day, ordinary fare? do you think," he added, taking my hands in one of his, "i did not see how blue and cold, and covered with chilblains, these little hands were, which piled up the great logs on the hearth when i came in this morning?" of course i could do nothing but put my head on his shoulder and cry quietly. it was of no use denying anything. then he added rapidly, in a low deep voice-- "do you think i could help seeing our mother at her old devices, pretending she had no appetite, and liked nothing so much as bones and sinews?" "o fritz," i sobbed, "i cannot help it. what am i to do?" "at least," he said, more cheerfully, "promise me, little woman, you will never make a distinguished stranger of your brother again, and endeavour by all kinds of vain and deceitful devices to draw the whole weight of the family cares on your own shoulders." "do you think it is a sin i ought to confess, fritz?" i said; "i did not mean it deceitfully; but i am always making such blunders about right and wrong. what can i do?" "does aunt ursula know?" he asked rather fiercely. "no; the mother will not let me tell any one. she thinks they would reflect on our father; and he told her only last week, he has a plan about a new way of smelting lead, which is, i think, to turn it all into silver. that would certainly be a wonderful discovery; and he thinks the elector would take it up at once, and we should probably have to leave eisenach and live near the electoral court. perhaps even the emperor would require us to communicate the secret to him, and then we should have to leave the country altogether; for you know there are great lead-mines in spain; and if once people could make silver out of lead, it would be much easier and safer than going across the great ocean to procure the native silver from the indian savages." fritz drew a long breath. "and meantime?" he said. "well, meantime," i said, "it is of course, sometimes a little difficult to get on." he mused a little while, and then he said-- "little elsè, i have thought of a plan which may, i think, bring us a few guldens--until the process of transmuting lead into silver is completed." "of course," i said, "after that we shall want nothing, but be able to give to those who do want. and oh, fritz! how well we shall understand how to help people who are poor. do you think that is why god lets us be so poor ourselves so long, and never seems to hear our prayers?" "it would be pleasant to think so, elsè," said fritz, gravely; "but it is very difficult to understand how to please god, or how to make our prayers reach him at all--at least when we are so often feeling and doing wrong." it cheered me to see that fritz does not despair of the great invention succeeding one day. he did not tell me what his own plan is. does fritz, then, also feel so sinful and so perplexed how to please god? perhaps a great many people feel the same. it is very strange. if it had only pleased god to make it a little plainer. i wonder if that book eva lost would tell us anything! after that evening the barrier between me and fritz was of course quite gone, and we seemed closer than ever. we had delightful twilight talks in our lumber-room, and i love him more than ever. so that aunt agnes would, i suppose, think me more of an idolater than before. but it is very strange that idolatry should seem to do me so much good. i seem to love all the world better for loving fritz, and to find everything easier to bear, by having him to unburden everything on, so that i had never fewer little sins to confess than during the two weeks fritz was at home. if god had only made loving brothers and sisters and the people at home the way to please him, instead of not loving them too much, or leaving them all to bury one's self in a cold convent, like aunt agnes! little eva actually persuaded fritz to begin teaching her the latin grammar! i suppose she wishes to be like her beloved st. catherine, who was so learned. and she says all the holy books, the prayers and the hymns, are in latin, so that she thinks it must be a language god particularly loves. she asked me a few days since if they speak latin in heaven. of course i could not tell. i told her i believed the bible was originally written in two other languages, the languages of the greeks and the jews, and that i had heard some one say adam and eve spoke the jews' language in paradise, which i suppose god taught them. but i have been thinking over it since, and i should not wonder if eva is right. because, unless latin is the language of the saints and holy angels in heaven, why should god wish the priests to speak it everywhere, and the people to say the ave and paternoster in it? we should understand it all so much better in german; but of course if latin is the language of the blessed saints and angels, that is a reason for it. if we do not always understand, they do, which is a great comfort. only i think it is a very good plan of little eva's to try and learn latin; and when i have more time to be religious, perhaps i may try also. iv. extracts from friedrich's chronicle. erfurt, . the university seems rather a cold world after the dear old home at eisenach. but it went to my heart to see how our mother and elsè struggle, and how worn and thin they look. happily for them, they have still hope in the great invention, and i would not take it away for the world. but meantime, i must at once do something to help. i can sometimes save some viands from my meals, which are portioned out to us liberally on this foundation, and sell them; and i can occasionally earn a little by copying themes for the richer students, or sermons and postils for the monks. the printing-press has certainly made that means of maintenance more precarious; but printed books are still very dear, and also very large, and the priests are often glad of small copies of fragments of the postils, or orations of the fathers, written off in a small, clear hand, to take with them on their circuits around the villages. there is also writing to be done for the lawyers, so that i do not despair of earning something: and if my studies are retarded a little, it does not so much matter. it is not for me to aspire to great things, unless, indeed, they can be reached by small and patient steps. i have a work to do for the family. my youth must be given to supporting them by the first means i can find. if i succeed, perhaps christopher or pollux will have leisure to aim higher than i can; or, perhaps, in middle and later life i myself shall have leisure to pursue the studies of these great old classics, which seem to make the horizon of our thoughts so wide, and the world so glorious and large, and life so deep. it would certainly be a great delight to devote one's self, as martin luther is now able to do, to literature and philosophy. his career is opening nobly. this spring he has taken his degree as master of arts, and he has been lecturing on aristotle's physics and logic. he has great power of making dim things clear, and old things fresh. his lectures are crowded. he is also studying law, in order to qualify himself for some office in the state. his parents (judging from his father's letters) seem to centre all their hopes in him; and it is almost the same here at the university. great things are expected of him; indeed there scarcely seems any career that is not open to him. and he is a man of such heart, as well as intellect, that he seems to make all the university, the professors as well as the students, look on him as a kind of possession of their own. all seem to feel a property in his success. just as it was with our little circle at eisenach, so it is with the great circle at the university. he is _our_ master martin; and in every step of his ascent we ourselves feel a little higher. i wonder, if his fame should indeed spread as we anticipate, if it will be the same one day with all germany? if the whole land will say exultingly by-and-by--_our_ martin luther? not that he is without enemies; his temper is too hot and his heart too warm for that negative distinction of phlegmatic negative natures. _june_, . martin luther came to me a few days since, looking terribly agitated. his friend alexius has been assassinated, and he takes it exceedingly to heart; not only, i think, because of the loss of one he loved, but because it brings death so terribly near, and awakens again those questionings which i know are in the depths of his heart, as well as of mine, about god, and judgment, and the dark, dread future before us, which we cannot solve, yet cannot escape nor forget. to-day we met again, and he was full of a book he had discovered in the university library, where he spends most of his leisure hours. it was a latin bible, which he had never seen before in his life. he marvelled greatly to see so much more in it than in the evangelia read in the churches, or in the collections of homilies. he was called away to lecture, or, he said, he could have read on for hours. especially one history seems to have impressed him deeply. it was in the old testament. it was the story of the child samuel and his mother hannah. "he read it quickly through," he said, "with hearty delight and joy; and because this was all new to him, he began to wish from the bottom of his heart that god would one day bestow on him such a book for his own." i suppose it is the thought of his own pious mother which makes this history interest him so peculiarly. it is indeed a beautiful history, as he told it me, and makes one almost wish one had been born in the times of the old hebrew monarchy. it seems as if god listened so graciously and readily then to that poor sorrowful woman's prayers. and if we could only, each of us, hear that voice from heaven, how joyful it would be to reply, like that blessed child, "speak, lord, for thy servant heareth;" and then to learn, without possibility of mistake, what god really requires of each of us. i suppose, however, the monks do feel as sure of their vocation as the holy child of old, when they leave home and the world for the service of the church. it would be a great help if other people had vocations to their various works in life, like the prophet samuel and (i suppose) the monks, that we might all go on fearlessly, with a firm step, each in his appointed path, and feel sure that we are doing the right thing, instead of perhaps drawing down judgments on those we would die to serve, by our mistakes and sins. it can hardly be intended that all men should be monks and nuns. would to heaven, therefore, that laymen had also their vocation, instead of this terrible uncertainty and doubt that will shadow the heart at times, that we may have missed our path (as i did that night in the snow-covered forest), and, like cain, be flying from the presence of god, and gathering on us and ours his curse. _july_ , . there is a great gloom over the university. the plague is among us. many are lying dead who, only last week, were full of youth and hope. numbers of the professors, masters, and students have fled to their homes, or to various villages in the nearest reaches of the thuringian forest. the churches are thronged at all the services. the priests and monks (those who remain in the infected city) take advantage of the terror the presence of the pestilence excites, to remind people of the more awful terrors of that dreadful day of judgment and wrath which no one will be able to flee. women, and sometimes men, are borne fainting from the churches, and often fall at once under the infection, and never are seen again. martin luther seems much troubled in mind. this epidemic, following so close on the assassination of his friend, seems to overwhelm him. but he does not talk of leaving the city. perhaps the terrors which weigh most on him are those the preachers recall so vividly to us just now, from which there is no flight by change of place, but only by change of life. during this last week, especially since he was exposed to a violent thunder-storm on the high road near erfurt, he has seemed strangely altered. a deep gloom is on his face, and he seems to avoid his old friends. i have scarcely spoken to him. _july_ . to-day, to my great surprise, martin has invited me and several other of his friends to meet at his rooms on the day after to-morrow, to pass a social evening in singing and feasting. the plague has abated; yet i rather wonder at any one thinking of merry-making yet. they say, however, that a merry heart is the best safe-guard. _july_ . the secret of martin luther's feast is opened now. the whole university is in consternation. he has decided on becoming a monk. many think it is a sudden impulse, which may yet pass away. i do not. i believe it is the result of the conflict of years, and that he has only yielded, in this act, to convictions which have been recurring to him continually during all his brilliant university career. never did he seem more animated than yesterday evening. the hours flew by in eager, cheerful conversation. a weight seemed removed from us. the pestilence was departing; the professors and students were returning. we felt life resuming its old course, and ventured once more to look forward with hope. many of us had completed our academical course, and were already entering the larger world beyond--the university of life. some of us had appointments already promised, and most of us had hopes of great things in the future; the less definite the prospects, perhaps the more brilliant. martin luther did not hazard any speculations as to his future career; but that surprised none of us. his fortune, we said, was insured already; and many a jesting claim was put in for his future patronage, when he should be a great man. we had excellent music also, as always at any social gathering where martin luther is. his clear, true voice was listened to with applause in many a well-known song, and echoed in joyous choruses afterward by the whole party. so the evening passed, until the university hour for repose had nearly arrived; when suddenly, in the silence after the last note of the last chorus had died away, he bid us all farewell; for on the morrow, he said, he purposed to enter the augustinian monastery as a novice! at first, some treated this as a jest; but his look and bearing soon banished that idea. then all earnestly endeavoured to dissuade him from his purpose. some spoke of the expectations the university had formed of him--others, of the career in the world open to him; but at all this he only smiled. when, however, one of us reminded him of his father, and the disappointment it might cause in his home, i noticed that a change came over his face, and i thought there was a slight quiver on his lip. but all,--friendly remark, calm remonstrance, fervent, affectionate entreaties,--all were unavailing. "to-day," he said, "you see me; after this you will see me no more." thus we separated. but this morning, when some of his nearest friends went to his rooms early, with the faint hope of yet inducing him to listen, while we pressed on him the thousand unanswerable arguments which had occurred to us since we parted from him, his rooms were empty, and he was nowhere to be found. to all our inquiries we received no reply but that master martin had gone that morning, before it was light, to the augustinian cloister. thither we followed him, and knocked loudly at the heavy convent gates. after some minutes they were slightly opened, and a sleepy porter appeared. "is martin luther here?" we asked. "he is here!" was the reply; not, we thought, without a little triumph in the tone. "we wish to speak with him," demanded one of us. "no one is to speak with him," was the grim rejoinder. "until when?" we asked. there was a little whispering inside, and then came the decisive answer, "not for a month at least." we would have lingered to parley further, but the heavy nailed doors were closed against us, we heard the massive bolts rattle as they were drawn, and all our assaults with fists or iron staffs on the convent gates, from that moment did not awaken another sound within. "dead to the world, indeed!" murmured one at length; "the grave could not be more silent." baffled, and hoarse with shouting, we wandered back again to martin luther's rooms. the old familiar rooms, where we had so lately spent hours with him in social converse; where i and many of us had spent so many an hour in intimate, affectionate intercourse,--his presence would be there no more; and the unaltered aspect of the mute, inanimate things only made the emptiness and change more painful by the contrast. and yet, when we began to examine more closely, the aspect of many things was changed. his flute and lute, indeed, lay on the table, just as he had left them on the previous evening. but the books--scholastic, legal, and classical--were piled up carefully in one corner, and directed to the booksellers. in looking over the well-known volumes, i only missed two, virgil and plautus; i suppose he took these with him. whilst we were looking at a parcel neatly rolled up in another place, the old man who kept his rooms in order came in, and said, "that is master martin's master's robe, his holiday attire, and his master's ring. they are to be sent to his parents at mansfeld." a choking sensation came over me as i thought of the father who had struggled so hard to maintain his son, and had hoped so much from him, receiving that packet. not from the dead. worse than from the dead, it seemed to me. deliberately self-entombed; deliberately with his own hands building up a barrier between him and all who love him best. with the dead, if they are happy, we may hold communion--at least the creed speaks of the communion of saints; we may pray to them; or, at the worst, we may pray for them. but between the son in the convent and the father at mansfeld the barrier is not merely one of stone and earth. it is of the impenetrable iron of will and conscience. it would be a _temptation_ now for martin luther to pour out his heart in affectionate words to father, mother, or friend. and yet, if he is right,--if the flesh is only to be subdued, if god is only to be pleased, if heaven is only to be won in this way,--it is of little moment indeed what the suffering may be to us or any belonging to us in this fleeting life, down which the grim gates of death which close it, ever cast their long shadow. may not martin serve his family better in the cloister than at the emperor's court, for is not the cloister the court of a palace more imperial?--we may say, the very audience-chamber of the king of kings. besides, if he had a vocation, what curse might not follow despising it? happy for those whose vocation is so clear that they dare not disobey it; or whose hearts are so pure that they would not if they dared! _july_ . these two days the university has been in a ferment at the disappearance of martin luther. many are indignant with him, and more with the monks, who, they say, have taken advantage of a fervent impulse, and drawn him into their net. some, however, especially those of the school of mutianus--the humanists--laugh, and say there are ways through the cloister to the court,--and even to the tiara. but those misunderstand martin. we who know him are only too sure that he will be a true monk, and that for him there is no gate from the cloister back into the world. it appears now that he had been meditating this step more than a fortnight. on the first of this month (july) he was walking on the road between erfurt and stotterheim, when a thunder-storm which had been gathering over the thuringian forest, and weighing with heavy silence on the plague-laden air, suddenly burst over his head. he was alone, and far from shelter. peal followed peal, succeeded by terrible silences; the forked lightning danced wildly around him, until at length one terrific flash tore up the ground at his feet, and nearly stunned him. he was alone, and far from shelter; he felt his soul equally alone and unsheltered. the thunder seemed to him the angry voice of an irresistible, offended god. the next flash might wither his body to ashes, and smite his soul into the flames it so terribly recalled; and the next thunder-peal which followed might echo like the trumpet of doom over him lying unconscious, deaf, and mute in death. unconscious and mute as to his body! but who could imagine to what terrible intensity of conscious, everlasting anguish his soul might have awakened; what wailings might echo around his lost spirit, what cries of unavailing entreaty he might be pouring forth? unavailing then! not, perhaps wholly unavailing now! he fell on his knees,--he prostrated himself on the earth, and cried in his anguish and terror, "help, beloved st. anne, and i will straightway become a monk." the storm rolled slowly away; but the irrevocable words had been spoken, and the peals of thunder, as they rumbled more and more faintly in the distance, echoed on his heart like the dirge of all his worldly life. he reached erfurt in safety, and, distrustful of his own steadfastness, breathed nothing of his purpose except to those who would, he thought, sustain him in it. this was no doubt the cause of his absent and estranged looks, and of his avoiding us during that fortnight. he confided his intention first to andrew staffelstein, the rector of the university, who applauded and encouraged him, and took him at once to the new franciscan cloister. the monks received him with delight, and urged his immediately joining their order. he told them he must first acquaint his father of his purpose, as an act of confidence only due to a parent who had denied himself so much and toiled so hard to maintain his son liberally at the university. but the rector and the monks rejoined that he must not consult with flesh and blood; he must "forsake father and mother, and steal away to the cross of christ." "whoso putteth his hand to the plough and looketh back," said they, "is not worthy of the kingdom of god." to remain in the world was peril. to return to it was perdition. a few religious women to whom the rector mentioned martin's intentions, confirmed him in them with fervent words of admiration and encouragement. did not one of them relent, and take pity on his mother and his father? and yet, i doubt if martin's mother would have interposed one word of remonstrance between him and the cloister. she is a very religious woman. to offer her son, her pride, to god, would have been offering the dearest part of herself; and women have a strength in self-sacrifice, and a mysterious joy, which i feel no doubt would have carried her through. with martin's father it would no doubt have been different. he has not a good opinion of the monks, and he has a very strong sense of paternal and filial duty. he, the shrewd, hard-working, successful peasant, looks on the monks as a company of drones, who, in imagining they are giving up the delights of the world, are often only giving up its duties. he was content to go through any self-denial and toil that martin, the pride of the whole family, might have scope to develop his abilities. but to have the fruit of all his counsel, and care, and work buried in a convent, will be very bitter to him. it was terrible advice for the rector to give his son. and yet, no doubt, god has the first claim; and to expose martin to any influence which might have induced him to give up his vocation, would have been perilous indeed. no doubt the conflict in martin's heart was severe enough as it was. his nature is so affectionate, his sense of filial duty so strong, and his honour and love for his parents so deep. since the step is taken, holy mary aid him not to draw back! _december_, . this morning i saw a sight i never thought to have seen. a monk, in the grey frock and cowl of the augustinians, was pacing slowly through the streets with a heavy sack on his shoulders. the ground was covered with snow, his feet were bare; but it was no unfrequent sight, and i was idly and half-unconsciously watching him pause at door after door, and humbly receiving any contributions that were offered, stow them away in the convent-sack, when at length he stopped at the door of the house i was in, and then, as his face turned up towards the window where i stood, i caught the eye of martin luther! i hurried to the door with a loaf in my hand, and, before offering it to him, would have embraced him as of old; but he bowed low as he received the bread, until his forehead nearly touched the ground, and, murmuring a latin "gratias," would have passed on. "martin," i said, "do you not know me?" "i am on the service of the convent," he said. "it is against the rules to converse or to linger." it was hard to let him go without another word. "god and the saints help thee, brother martin!" i said. he half turned, crossed himself, bowed low once more, as a maid-servant threw him some broken meat, said meekly, "god be praised for every gift he bestoweth," and went on his toilsome quest for alms with stooping form and downcast eyes. but how changed his face was! the flush of youth and health quite faded from the thin, hollow cheeks; the fire of wit and fancy all dimmed in the red, sunken eyes! fire there is indeed in them still, but it seemed to me of the kind that consumes--not that warms and cheers. they are surely harsh to him at the convent. to send him who was the pride and ornament of the university not six months ago, begging from door to door, at the houses of friends and pupils, with whom he may not even exchange a greeting! is there no pleasure to the obscure and ignorant monks in thus humbling one who was so lately so far above them? the hands which wield such rods need to be guided by hearts that are very noble or very tender. nevertheless, i have no doubt that brother martin inflicts severer discipline on himself than any that can be laid on him from without. it is no external conflict that has thus worn and bowed him down in less than half a year. i fear he will impose some severe mortification or himself for having spoken those few words to which i tempted him. but if it is his vocation, and if it is for heaven, and if he is thereby earning merits to bestow on others, any conflict could no doubt be endured! _july_, . brother martin's novitiate has expired, and he has taken the name of augustine, but we shall scarcely learn to call him by it. several of us were present a few days since at his taking the final vows in the augustinian church. once more we heard the clear, pleasant voice which most of us had heard, in song and animated conversation, on that farewell evening. it sounded weak and thin, no doubt with fasting. the garb of the novice was laid aside, the monk's frock was put on, and kneeling below the altar steps, with the prior's hands on his bowed head, he took the vow in latin:-- "i, brother martin, do make profession and promise obedience unto almighty god, unto mary, ever virgin, and unto thee, my brother, prior of this cloister, in the name and in the stead of the general prior of the order of the eremites of st. augustine, the bishop and his regular successors, to live in poverty and chastity after the rule of the said st. augustine until death." then the burning taper, symbol of the lighted and ever-vigilant heart, was placed in his hand. the prior murmured a prayer over him, and instantly from the whole of the monks burst the hymn, "veni sancte spiritus." he knelt while they were singing; and then the monks led him up the steps into the choir, and welcomed him with the kiss of brotherhood. within the screen, within the choir, among the holy brotherhood inside, who minister before the altar! and we, his old friends, left outside in the nave, separated from him for ever by the screen of that irrevocable vow! for ever! is it for ever? will there indeed be such a veil, an impenetrable barrier, between us and him at the judgment-day? and we outside? a barrier impassable for ever then, but not now, not yet. _january_, . i have just returned from another christmas at home. things look a little brighter there. this last year, since i took my master's degree, i have been able to help them a little more effectually with the money i receive from my pupils. it was a delight to take our dear, self-denying, loving elsè a new dress for holidays, although she protested her old crimson petticoat and black jacket were as good as ever. the child eva has still that deep, calm, earnest look in her eyes, as if she saw into the world of things unseen and eternal, and saw there what filled her heart with joy. i suppose it is that angelic depth of her eyes, in contrast with the guileless, rosy smile of the child-like lips, which gives the strange charm to her face, and makes one think of the pictures of the child-angels. she can read the church latin now easily, and delights especially in the old hymns. when she repeats them in that soft, reverent, childish voice, they seem to me deeper and more sacred than when sung by the fullest choir. her great favourite is st. bernard's "jesu dulcis memoria," and his "salve caput cruentatum;" but some verses of the "dies iræ" also are very often on her lips. i used to hear her warbling softly about the house, or at her work, with a voice like a happy dove hidden in the depths of some quiet wood,-- "querens me sedisti lassus," jesu mi dulcissime, domine coelorum, conditor omnipotens, rex universorum; quis jam actus sufficit mirari gestorum, quæ te ferie compulit salus miserorum. te de coelo caritas traxit animarum, pro quibus palatium deserens præclarum; miseram ingrediens vallum lacrymarum, opus durum suscipis, et iter amarum.[ ] [footnote : "jesu, sovereign lord of heaven, sweetest friend to me. king of all the universe, all was made by thee; who can know or comprehend the wonders thou has wrought, since the saving of the lost thee so low hath brought? thee the love of souls drew down from beyond the sky,-- drew thee from thy glorious home, thy palace bright and high! to this narrow vale of tears thou thy footsteps bendest: hard the work thou tak'st on thee, rough the way thou wendest."] the sonorous words of the ancient imperial language sound so sweet and strange, and yet so familiar from the fresh childish voice. latin seems from her lips no more a dead language. it is as if she had learned it naturally in infancy from listening to the songs of the angels, who watched her in her sleep, or from the lips of a sainted mother bending over her pillow from heaven. one thing, however, seems to disappoint little eva. she has a sentence taken from a book her father left her before he died, but which she was never allowed to see afterwards. she is always hoping to find the book in which this sentence was, and has not yet succeeded. i have little doubt myself that the book was some heretical volume belonging to her father, who was executed for being a hussite. it is to be hoped, therefore, she will never find it. she did not tell me this herself, probably because elsè, to whom she mentioned it, discouraged her in such a search. we all feel it is a great blessing to have rescued that innocent heart from the snares of those pernicious heretics, against whom our saxon nation made such a noble struggle. there are not very many of the hussites left now in bohemia. as a national party they are indeed destroyed, since the calixtines separated from them. there are, however, still a few dragging out a miserable existence among the forests and mountains; and it is reported that these opinions have not yet even been quite crushed in the cities, in spite of the vigorous measures used against them, but that not a few secretly cling to their tenets, although outwardly conforming to the church. so inveterate is the poison of heresy, and so great the danger from which little eva has been rescued. erfurt, _may _, . to-day once more the seclusion and silence which have enveloped martin luther since he entered the cloister have been broken. this day he has been consecrated priest, and has celebrated his first mass. there was a great feast at the augustinian convent; offerings poured in abundance into the convent treasury, and martin's father, john luther, came from mansfeld to be present at the ceremony. he is reconciled at last to his son (whom for a long time he refused to see); although not, i believe, to his monastic profession. it is certainly no willing sacrifice on the father's part. and no wonder. after toiling for years to place his favourite son in a position where his great abilities might have scope, it must have been hard to see everything thrown away just as success was attained, for what seemed to him a willful, superstitious fancy. and without a word of dutiful consultation to prepare him for the blow! having, however, at last made up his mind to forgive his son, he forgave him like a father, and came in pomp with precious gifts to do him honour. he rode to the convent gate with an escort of twenty horsemen, and gave his son a present of twenty florins. brother martin was so cheered by the reconciliation, that at the ordination feast he ventured to try to obtain from his father not only pardon, but sanction and approval. it was of the deepest interest to me to hear his familiar eloquent voice again, pleading for his father's approval. but he failed. in vain he stated in his own fervent words the motives that had led to his vow; in vain did the monks around support and applaud all he said. the old man was not to be moved. "dear father," said martin, "what was the reason of thy objecting to my choice to become a monk? why wert thou then so displeased, and perhaps art not reconciled yet? it is such a peaceful and godly life to live." i cannot say that brother martin's worn and furrowed face spoke much for the peacefulness of his life; but master john luther boldly replied in a voice that all at the table might hear,-- "didst thou never hear that a son must be obedient to his parents? and, you learned men, did you never read the scriptures, 'thou shalt honour thy father and thy mother?' god grant that those signs you speak of may not prove to be lying wonders of satan." brother martin attempted no defence. a look of sharp pain came over his face, as if an arrow had pierced his heart; but he remained quite silent. yet he is a priest; he is endued with a power never committed even to the holy angels--to transubstantiate bread into god--to sacrifice for the living and the dead. he is admitted into the inner circle of the court of heaven. he is on board that sacred ark which once he saw portrayed at magdeburg, where priests and monks sail safely amidst a drowning world. and what is more, he himself may, from his safe and sacred vessel, stoop down and rescue perishing men; perhaps confer unspeakable blessings on the soul of that very father whose words so wounded him. for such ends well may he bear that the arrow should pierce his heart. did not a sword pierce thine, o mournful mother of consolations? and he is certain of his vocation. he does not think as we in the world so often must, "is god leading me, or the devil? am i resisting his higher calling in only obeying the humbler call of every-day duty? am i bringing down blessings on those i love, or curses?" brother martin, without question, has none of these distracting doubts. he may well bear any other anguish which may meet him _in_ the ways of god, and _because_ he has chosen them. at least he has not to listen to such tales as i have heard lately from a young knight, ulrich von hutton, who is studying here at present, and has things to relate of the monks, priests, and bishops in rome itself which tempt one to think all invisible things a delusion, and all religion a pretence. v. elsè's chronicle. eisenach, _january_, . we have passed through a terrible time; if, indeed, we are through it! the plague has been at eisenach; and, alas! is here still. fritz came home to us as usual at christmas. just before he left erfurt the plague had broken out in the university. but he did not know it. when first he came to us he seemed quite well, and was full of spirits; but on the second day he complained of cold and shivering, with pain in the head, which increased towards the evening. his eyes then began to have a fixed, dim look, and he seemed unable to speak or think long connectedly. i noticed that the mother watched him anxiously that evening; and at its close, feeling his hands feverish, she said very quietly that she should sit up in his room that night. at first he made some resistance, but he seemed too faint to insist on anything; and as he rose to go to bed, he tottered a little, and said he felt giddy, so that my mother drew his arm within hers and supported him to his room. still i did not feel anxious; but when eva and i reached our room, she said, in that quiet, convincing manner which she had even as a child, fixing her large eyes on mine,-- "cousin elsè, fritz is very ill." "i think not, eva," i said; "and no one would feel anxious about him as soon as i should. he caught a chill on his way from erfurt. you know it was late when he arrived, and snowing fast, and he was so pleased to see us, and so eager in conversation that he would not change his things. it is only a slight feverish cold. besides, our mother's manner was so calm when she wished us good night. i do not think she is anxious. she is only sitting up with him for an hour or two to see that he sleeps." "cousin elsè," replied eva, "did you not see the mother's lip quiver when she turned to wish us good night?" "no, eva," said i; "i was looking at fritz." and so we went to bed. but i thought it strange that eva, a girl of sixteen, should be more anxious than i was, and i his sister. hope is generally so strong, and fear so weak, before one has seen many fears realized, and many hopes disappointed. eva, however, had always a way of seeing into the truth of things. i was very tired with the day's work (for i always rise earlier than usual when fritz is here, to get everything done before he is about), and i must very soon have fallen asleep. it was not midnight when i was roused by the mother's touch upon my arm. the light of the lamp she held showed me a paleness in her face and an alarm in her eyes which awoke me thoroughly in an instant. "elsè," she said, "go into the boys' room and send christopher for a physician. i cannot leave fritz. but do not alarm your father!" she added, as she crept again out of the room after lighting our lamp. i called christopher, and in five minutes he was dressed and out of the house. when i returned to our room eva was sitting dressed on the bed. she had not been asleep, i saw. i think she had been praying, for she held the crucifix in her clasped hands, and there were traces of tears on her cheek, although when she raised her eyes to me, they were clear and tearless. "what is it, cousin elsè?" she said. "when i went for a moment to the door of his room he was talking. it was his voice, but with such a strange, wild tone in it. i think he heard my step, although i thought no one would, i stepped so softly, for he called 'eva, eva!' but the mother came to the door and silently motioned me away. but _you_ may go, elsè," she added, with a passionate rapidity very unusual with her. "go and see him." i went instantly. he was talking very rapidly and vehemently, and in an incoherent way it was difficult to understand. my mother sat quite still, holding his hand. his eyes were not bright as in fever, but dim and fixed. yet he was in a raging fever. his hand, when i touched it, burned like fire, and his face was flushed crimson. i stood there quite silently beside my mother until the physician came. at first fritz's eyes followed me; then they seemed watching the door for some one else; but in a few minutes the dull vacancy came over them again, and he seemed conscious of nothing. at last the physician came. he paused a moment at the door, and held a bag of myrrh before him; then advancing to the bed, he drew aside the clothes and looked at fritz's arm. "too plain!" he exclaimed, starting back as he perceived a black swelling there. "it is the plague!" my mother followed him to the door. "excuse me, madam," he said; "life is precious, and i might carry the infection into the city." "can nothing be done?" she said. "not much!" he said bluntly; and then, after a moment's hesitation, touched by the distress in her face, he returned to the bed-side. "i have touched him," he murmured, as if apologizing to himself for incurring the risk; "the mischief is done, doubtless, already." and taking out his lancet he bled my brother's arm. then, after binding up the arm, he turned to me and said,-- "get cypress and juniper wood, and burn them in a brazier in this room, with rosin and myrrh. keep your brother as warm as possible--do not let in a breath of air!" and, he added, as i followed him to the door, "on no account suffer him to sleep for a moment,[ ] and let no one come near him but you and your mother." [footnote : an approved method of treatment of the plague in those times.] when i returned to the bed-side, after obeying these directions, fritz's mind was wandering; and although we could understand little that he said, he was evidently in great distress. he seemed to have comprehended the physician's words, for he frequently repeated, "the plague! the plague! i have brought a curse upon my house!" and then he would wander, strangely calling on martin luther and eva to intercede and obtain pardon for him, as if he were invoking saints in heaven; and occasionally he would repeat fragments of latin hymns. it was dreadful to have to keep him awake; to have to rouse him, whenever he showed the least symptom of slumber, to thoughts which so perplexed and troubled his poor brain. but on the second night the mother fainted away, and i had to carry her to her room. her dear thin frame was no heavy weight to bear. i laid her on the bed in our room, which was the nearest. eva appeared at the door as i stood beside our mother. her face was as pale as death. before i could prevent it, she came up to me, and taking my hands said,-- "cousin elsè, only promise me one thing;--if he is to die, let me see him once more." "i dare not promise anything, eva," i said; "consider the infection!" "what will the infection matter to me if he dies?" she said; "i am not afraid to die." "think of the father and the children, eva," i said; "if our mother and i should be seized next, what would they do?" "chriemhild will soon be old enough to take care of them," she said very calmly; "promise me, promise me, elsè, or i will see him at once." and i promised her, and she threw her arms around me, and kissed me. then i went back to fritz, leaving eva chafing my mother's hands. it was of no avail, i thought, to try to keep her from contagion, now that she had held my hands in hers. when i came again to fritz's bed-side he was asleep! bitterly i reproached myself; but what could i have done? he was asleep--sleeping quietly, with soft, even breathing. i had not courage to awake him; but i knelt down and implored the blessed virgin and all the saints to have mercy on me and spare him. and they must have heard me; for, in spite of my failure in keeping the physician's orders, fritz began to recover from that very sleep. our grandmother says it was a miracle; "unless," she added, "the doctor was wrong!" he awoke from that sleep refreshed and calm, but weak as an infant. it was delightful to meet his eyes when first he awoke, with the look of quiet recognition in them, instead of that wild, fixed stare, or that restless wandering; to look once more into his heart through his eyes. he looked at me a long time with a quiet content, without speaking, and then he said, holding out his hand to me,-- "elsè, you have been watching long here. you look tired; go and rest." "it rests me best to look at you," i said, "and see you better." he seemed too weak to persist, and after taking some food and cooling drinks, he fell asleep again, and so did i; for the next thing i was conscious of was our mother gently placing a pillow underneath my head, which had sunk on the bed where i had been kneeling, watching fritz. i was ashamed of being such a bad nurse; but our mother insisted on my going to our room to seek rest and refreshment. and for the next few days we took it in turns to sit beside him, until he began to regain strength. then we thought he might like to see eva; but when she came to the door, he eagerly motioned her away, and said,-- "do not let her venture near me. think if i were to bring this judgment of god on her!" eva turned away, and was out of sight in an instant; but the troubled, perplexed expression came back into my brother's eyes, and the feverish flush into his face, and it was long before he seemed calm again. i followed eva. she was sitting with clasped hands in our room. "oh, elsè," she said, "how altered he is! are you sure he will live, even now?" i tried to comfort her with the hope which was naturally so much stronger in me, because i had seen him in the depths from which he was now slowly rising again to life. but something in that glimpse of him seemed to weigh on her very life; and as fritz recovered, eva seemed to grow paler and weaker, until the same feverish symptoms came over her which he had learned so to dread, and then the terrible tokens, the plague-spots, which could not be doubted, appeared on the fair, soft arms, and eva was lying with those dim, fixed, pestilence-veiled eyes, and the wandering brain. for a day we were able to conceal it from fritz, but no longer. on the second evening after eva was stricken, i found him standing by the window of his room, looking into the street. i shall never forget the expression of horror in his eyes as he turned from the window to me. "elsè," he said, "how long have those fires been burning in the streets?" "for a week," i said. "they are fires of cypress-wood and juniper, and myrrh and pine gums. the physicians say they purify the air." "i know too well what they are," he said. "and, elsè," he said, "why is master bürer's house opposite closed?" "he has lost two children," i said. "and why are those other windows closed all down the street?" he rejoined. "the people have left, brother," i said; "but the doctors hope the worst is over now." "o just god!" he exclaimed, sinking on a chair and covering his face; "i was flying from thee, and i have brought the curse on my people!" then, after a minute's pause, before i could think of any words to comfort him, he looked up, and suddenly demanded,-- "who are dead in _this_ house, elsè?" "none, none," i said. "who are stricken?" he asked. "all the children and the father are well," i said, "and the mother." "then eva is stricken!" he exclaimed--"the innocent for the guilty! she will die and be a saint in heaven, and i, who have murdered her, shall live, and shall see her no more, for ever and for ever." i could not comfort him. the strength of his agony utterly stunned me. i could only burst into tears, so that he had to try to comfort me. but he did not speak; he only took my hands in his kindly, as of old, without saying another word. at length i said-- "it is not you who brought the plague, dear fritz; it is god who sent it!" "i know it is god!" he replied, with such an intense bitterness in his tone that i did not attempt another sentence. that night eva wandered much as i watched beside her; but her delirium was quite different from that of fritz. her spirit seemed floating away on a quiet stream into some happy land we could not see. she spoke of a palace, of a home, of fields of fragrant lilies, of white-robed saints walking among them with harps and songs, and of one who welcomed her. occasionally, too, she murmured snatches of the same latin hymns that fritz had repeated in his delirium, but in a tone so different, so child-like and happy! if ever she appeared troubled, it was when she seemed to miss some one, and be searching here and there for them; but then she often ended with, "yes, i know they will come; i must wait till they come." and so at last she fell asleep, as if the thought had quieted her. i could not hinder her sleeping, whatever the physician said; she looked so placid, and had such a happy smile on her lips. only once, when she had lain thus an hour quite still, while her chest seemed scarcely to heave with her soft, tranquil breathing, i grew alarmed lest she should glide thus from us into the arms of the holy angels; and i whispered softly, "eva, dear eva!" her lips parted slightly, and she murmured-- "not yet; wait till _they_ can come." and then she turned her head again on the pillow, and slept on. she awoke quite collected and calm, and then she said quietly-- "where is the mother?" "she is resting, darling eva." she gave a little contented smile, and then, in broken words at intervals, she said-- "now, i should like to see fritz. you promised i should see him again; and now if i die, i think he would like to see me once more." i went to fetch my brother. he was pacing up and down his room, with the crucifix clasped to his breast. at first, to my surprise, he seemed very reluctant to come; but when i said how much she wished it, he followed me quite meekly into her room. eva was resuming her old command over us all. she held out her hand, with a look of such peace and rest on her face. "cousin fritz," she said at intervals, as she had strength, "you have taught me so many things; you have done so much for me! now i wish you to learn my sentence, that if i go, it may make you happy, as it does me." then very slowly and distinctly she repeated the words--"'_god so loved the world, that he gave his only son._' cousin fritz," she added, "i do not know the end of the sentence. i have not been able to find it; but you must find it. i am sure it comes from a good book, it makes me love god so much to think of it. promise me you will find it, if i should die." he promised, and she was quite satisfied. her strength seemed exhausted, and in a few moments, with my arms round her as i sat beside her, and with her hand in fritz's, she fell into a deep, quiet sleep. i felt from that time she would not die, and i whispered very softly to fritz-- "she will not die; she will recover, and you will not have killed her; you will have saved her!" but when i looked into his face, expecting to meet a thankful, happy response, i was appalled by the expression there. he stood immovable, not venturing to withdraw his hand, but with a rigid, hopeless look in his worn, pale face, which contrasted terribly with the smile of deep repose on the sleeping face on which his eyes were fixed. and so he remained until she awoke, when his whole countenance changed for an instant to return her smile. then he said softly, "god bless you, eva!" and pressing her hand to his lips, he left the room. when i saw him again that day, i said-- "fritz, you have saved eva's life! she rallied from the time she saw you." "yes," he replied, very gently, but with a strange impassiveness in his face; "i think that may be true. i have saved her." but he did not go in her room again; and the next day, to our surprise and disappointment, he said suddenly that he must leave us. he said few words of farewell to any of us, and would not see eva to take leave of her. he said it might disturb her. but when he kissed me before he went, his hands and his lips were as cold as death. yet as i watched him go down the street, he did not once turn to wave a last good-bye, as he always used to do; but slowly and steadily he went on till he was out of sight. i turned back into the house with a very heavy heart; but when i went to tell eva fritz was gone, and tried to account for his not coming to take leave of her, because i thought it would give her pain (and it does seem to me rather strange of fritz), she looked up with her quiet, trustful, contented smile, and said,-- "i am not at all pained, cousin elsè. i know fritz had good reasons for it--some good, kind reasons--because he always has; and we shall see him again as soon as he feels it right to come." vi. friedrich's story. st. sebastian, erfurt, _january_ , . the irrevocable step is taken. i have entered the augustinian cloister. i write in martin luther's cell. truly i have forsaken father and mother, and all that was dearest to me, to take refuge at the foot of the cross. i have sacrificed everything on earth to my vocation, and yet the conflict is not over. i seem scarcely more certain of my vocation now than while i remained in the world. doubts buzz around me like wasps, and sting me on every side. the devil, transforming himself into an angel of light, perplexes me with the very words of scripture. the words of martin luther's father recur to me, as if spoken by a divine voice, "honour thy father and thy mother!" echoes back to me from the chants of the choir, and seems written everywhere on the white walls of my cell. and, besides the thunder of these words of god, tender voices seem to call me back by every plea of duty, not to abandon them to fight the battle of life alone. elsè calls me from the old lumber-room, "fritz' brother! who is to tell me now what to do?" my mother does not call me back; but i seem ever to see her tearful eyes, full of reproach and wonder which she tries to repress, lifted up to heaven for strength; and her worn, pale face, growing more wan every day. in one voice and one face only i seem never to hear or see reproach or recall; and yet, heaven forgive me, those pure and saintly eyes which seem only to say, "go on, cousin fritz, god will help thee, and i will pray!"--those sweet, trustful, heavenly eyes, draw me back to the world with more power than anything else. is it, then, too late? have i lingered in the world so long that my heart can never more be torn from it? is this the punishment of my guilty hesitation, that, though i have given my body to the cloister, god will not have my soul, which evermore must hover like a lost spirit about the scenes it was too reluctant to leave? shall i evermore, when i lift my eyes to heaven, see all that is pure and saintly there embodied for me in a face which it is deadly sin for me to remember? yet i have saved her life! if i brought the curse on my people by my sin, was not my obedience accepted? from the hour when, in my room alone, after hearing that eva was stricken, i prostrated myself before god, and not daring to take his insulted name on my lips, approached him through his martyred saint, and said, "holy sebastian, by the arrows which pierced thy heart, ward off the arrows of pestilence from my home, and i will become a monk, and change my own guilty name for thine,"--from that moment did not eva begin to recover, and from that time were not all my kindred unscathed? "cadent a latere tuo mille, et decem millia a dextris tuis; ad te autem non approprinquabit." were not the words literally fulfilled; and while many still fell around us, was one afterwards stricken in my home? holy sebastian, infallible protector against pestilence, by thy firmness when accused, confirm my wavering will; by thy double death, save me from the second death; by the arrows which could not slay thee, thou hast saved us from the arrow that flieth by day; by the cruel blows which sent thy spirit from the circus to paradise, strengthen me against the blows of satan; by thy body rescued from ignominious sepulture and laid in the catacombs among the martyrs, raise me from the filth of sin; by thy generous pleading for thy fellow sufferers amidst thine own agonies, help me to plead for those who suffer with me; and by all thy sorrows, and merits, and joys, plead--oh plead for me, who henceforth bear thy name! st. scholastica, _february_ . i have been a month in the monastery. yesterday my first probation was over, and i was invested with the white garments of the novitiate. the whole of the brotherhood were assembled in the church, when, kneeling before the prior, he asked me solemnly whether i thought my strength sufficient for the burden i purposed to take on myself. in a low, grave voice, he reminded me what those burdens are--the rough plain clothing; the abstemious living; the broken rest and long vigils; the toils in the service of the order; the reproach and poverty; the humiliations of the mendicant; and, above all, the renunciation of self-will and individual glory, to be a member of the order, bound to do whatever the superiors command, and to go whithersoever they direct. "with god for my help," i could venture to say, "of this will i make trial." then the prior replied,-- "we receive thee, therefore, on probation for one year; and may god, who has begun a good work in thee, carry it on unto perfection." the whole brotherhood responded in a deep amen, and then all the voices joined in the hymn,-- "magna pater augustine, preces nostras suscipe, et per eas conditori nos placare satage. atque rege gregem tuum, summum decus præsulum. amatorem paupertatis, te collaudant pauperes; assertorem veritatis amant veri judices; frangis nobis favos mellis de scripturis disserens. quæ obscura prius erant nobis plana faciens, tu de verbis salvatoris dulcem panem conficis, et propinas potum vitæ de psalmorum nectare. tu de vita clericorum sanctam scribis regulam, quam qui amant et sequunter viam tenent regiam, atque tuo sancto ductu redeunt ad patriam. regi regum salis, vita, decus et emperium; trinitati laus et honor sit per omne sæculum, qui concives nos ascribat supernorum civium."[ ] [footnote : "great father augustine, receive our prayers, and through them effectually reconcile the creator; and rule thy flock, the highest glory of rulers. the poor praise thee, lover of poverty; true judges love thee, defender of truth; breaking the honeycomb of the honey of scripture, thou distributest it to us. making smooth to us what before was obscure; thou, from the words of the saviour, furnishest us with wholesome bread, and givest to drink draughts of life from the nectar of the psalms. thou writest the holy rule for the life of priests, which, whosoever love and follow, keep the royal road, and by thy holy leading return to their fatherland. salvation to the king of kings, life, glory, and dominion; honour and praise be to the trinity throughout all ages, to him who declareth us to be fellow-citizens with the citizens of heaven."] as the sacred words were chanted, they mingled strangely in my mind with the ceremonies of the investiture. my hair was shorn with the clerical tonsure; my secular dress was laid aside; the garments of the novice were thrown on; and i was girded with the girdle of rope, whilst the prior murmured softly to me, that with the new robes i must put on the new man. then, as the last notes of the hymn died away, i knelt and bowed low to receive the prior's blessing, invoked in these words:-- "may god who hath converted this young man from the world, and given him a mansion in heaven, grant that his daily walk may be as becometh his calling; and that he may have cause to be thankful for what has this day been done." versicles were then chanted responsively by the monks, who, forming in procession, moved towards the choir, where we all prostrated ourselves in silent prayer. after this they conducted me to the great hall of the cloister, where all the brotherhood bestowed on me the kiss of peace. once more i knelt before the prior, who reminded me that he who persevereth to the end shall be saved; and gave me over to the direction of the preceptor, whom the new vicar-general staupitz has ordered to be appointed to each novice. thus the first great ceremony of my monastic life is over, and it has left me with a feeling of blank and disappointment. it has made no change that i can feel in my heart. it has not removed the world further off from me. it has only raised another impassable barrier between me and all that was dearest to me;--impassable as an ocean without ships, infrangible as the strongest iron, i am determined my _will_ shall make it; but to my _heart_, alas! thin as gossamer, since every faintest, wistful tone of love, which echoes from the past, can penetrate it and pierce me with sorrow. my preceptor is very strict in enforcing the rules order. trespasses against the rules are divided into four classes,--small, great, greater, and greatest, to each of which is assigned a different degree of penance. among the smaller are, failing to go to church as soon as the sign is given, forgetting to touch the ground instantly with the hand and to smite the breast if in reading in the choir or in singing the least error is committed; looking about during the service; omitting prostration at the annunciation or at christmas; neglecting the benediction in coming in or going out; failing to return books or garments to their proper places; dropping food; spilling drink; forgetting to say grace before eating. among the great trespasses are: contending, breaking the prescribed silence at fasts, and looking at women, or speaking to them, except in brief replies. the minute rules are countless. it is difficult at first to learn the various genuflexions, inclinations, and prostrations. the novices are never allowed to converse except in presence of the prior, are forbidden to take any notice of visitors, are enjoined to walk with downcast eyes, to read the scriptures diligently, to bow low in receiving every gift, and say, "the lord be praised in his gifts." how brother martin, with his free, bold, daring nature, bore those minute restrictions, i know not. to me there is a kind of dull, deadening relief in them, they distract my thoughts, or prevent my thinking. yet it must be true, my obedience will aid my kindred more than all my toil could ever have done whilst disobediently remaining in the world. it is not a selfish seeking of my own salvation and ease which has brought me here, whatever some may think and say, as they did of martin luther. i think of that ship in the picture at magdeburg he so often told me of. am i not in it,--actually _in_ it _now_? and shall i not hereafter, when my strength is recovered from the fatigue of reaching it, hope to lean over and stretch out my arms to them, still struggling in the waves of this bitter world? and save them! save them; yes, save their souls! did not my vow save precious lives? and shall not my fastings, vigils, disciplines, prayers be as effectual for their souls? and, then, hereafter, in heaven, where those dwell who, in virgin purity, have followed the lamb, shall i not lean over the jasper-battlements and help them from purgatory up the steep sides of paradise, and be first at the gate to welcome them in! and then, in paradise, where love will no longer be in danger of becoming sin, may we not be together for ever and for ever? and then, shall i regret that i abandoned the brief polluted joys of earth for the pure joys of eternity? shall i lament _then_ that i chose, according to my vocation, to suffer apart from them that their souls might be saved, rather than to toil with them for the perishing body? then! _then!_ i, a saint in the city of god! i, a hesitating, sinful novice in the augustinian monastery at erfurt, who, after resisting for years, have at last yielded up my body to the cloister, but have no more power than ever to yield up my heart to god! yet i am _in_ the sacred vessel; the rest will surely follow. do all monks have such a conflict? no doubt the devil fights hard for every fresh victim he loses. it is, it must be, the devil who beckons me through those dear faces, who calls me through those familiar voices; for _they_ would never call me back. they would hide their pain, and say, "go to god, if he calls thee; leave us and go to god." elsè, my mother, all would say that; if their hearts broke in trying to say it! had martin luther such thoughts in this very cell? if they are from the evil one, i think he had, for his assaults are strongest against the noblest; and yet i scarcely think he can have had such weak doubts as these which haunt me. he was not one of those who draw back to perdition; nor even of those who, having put their hand to the plough, _look_ back, as i, alas! am so continually doing. and what does the scripture say of such?--"they are not fit for the kingdom of god." no exception, no reserve--monk, priest, saint; if a man _look_ back, he is not fit for the kingdom of god. then what becomes of my hopes of paradise, or of acquiring merits which may aid others? _turn back_, draw back, i will _never_, although all the devils were to drive me, or all the world entice me, but _look_ back, who can help that? if a look can kill, what can save? mortification, crucifixion, not for a day, but daily;--i must die daily; i must be _dead_--dead to the world. this cell must to me be as a tomb, where all that was most living in my heart must die and be buried. was it so to martin luther? is the cloister that to those bands of rosy, comfortable monks, who drink beer from great cans, and feast on the best of the land, and fast on the choicest fish? the tempter! the tempter again! judge not, and ye shall not be judged. st. eulalia, erfurt, _february_ , . to-day one of the older monks came to me, seeing me, i suppose, look downcast and sad, and said, "fear not, brother sebastian, the strife is often hard at first; but remember the words of st. jerome: 'though thy father should lie before thy door weeping and lamenting, though thy mother should show thee the body that bore thee, and the breasts that nursed thee, see that thou trample them under foot, and go on straightway to christ.'" i bowed my head, according to rule, in acknowledgment of his exhortation, and i suppose he thought his words comforted and strengthened me; but heaven knows the conflict they awakened in my heart when i sat alone to-night in my cell. "cruel, bitter, wicked words!" my earthly heart would say; my sinful heart, that vigils, scourging, scarcely death itself, i fear, can kill. surely, at least, the holy father jerome spoke of heathen fathers and mothers. my mother would not show her anguish to win me back; she would say, "my son, my first-born, god bless thee; i give thee freely up to god." does she not say so in this letter which i have in her handwriting,--which i have and dare not look at, because of the storm of memories it brings rushing on my heart? is there a word of reproach or remonstrance in her letter? if there were, i would read it; it would strengthen me. the saints had that to bear. it is because those holy, tender words echo in my heart, from a voice weak with feeble health, that day by day and hour by hour, my heart goes back to the home at eisenach, and sees them toiling unaided in the daily struggle for bread, to which i have abandoned them, unsheltered and alone. then at times the thought comes, am i, after all, a dreamer, as i have sometimes ventured to think my father,--neglecting my plain, daily task for some atlantis? and if my atlantis is in paradise instead of beyond the ocean, does that make so much difference? if brother martin were only here, he might understand and help me; but he has now been nearly two years at wittemberg, where he is, they say, to lecture on theology at the elector's new university, and to be preacher. the monks seem nearly as proud of him as the university of erfurt was. yet, perhaps, after all, he might _not_ understand my perplexities. his nature was so firm and straightforward and strong. he would probably have little sympathy with wavering hearts and troubled consciences like mine. _march_ .--ss. perpetua and felicitas.-- erfurt, augustinian cloister. to-day i have been out on my first quest for alms. it seemed very strange at first to be begging at familiar doors, with the frock and the convent sack on my shoulders; but although i tottered a little at times under the weight as it grew heavy (for the plague and fasting have left me weak), i returned to the cloister feeling better and easier in mind, and more hopeful as to my vocation, than i had done for some days. perhaps, however, the fresh air had something to do with it, and, after all, it was only a little bodily exultation. but certainly such bodily loads and outward mortifications are not the burdens which weigh the spirit down. there seemed a luxury in the half-scornful looks of some of my former fellow-students, and in the contemptuous tossing to me of scraps of meat by some grudging hands; just as a tight pressure, which, in itself would be pain were we at ease, is relief to severe pain. perhaps, also, o holy perpetua and felicitas, whose day it is, and especially thou, o holy perpetua, who, after encouraging thy sons to die for christ, was martyred thyself, hast pleaded for my forsaken mother and for me, and sendest me this day some ray of hope. st. joseph.--_march_ .-- augustinian cloister, erfurt. st. joseph, whom i have chosen to be one of the twenty-one patrons whom i especially honour, hear and aid me to-day. thou whose glory it was to have no glory, but meekly to aid others to win their higher crowns, give me also some humble place on high; and not to me alone, but to those also whom i have left still struggling in the stormy seas of this perilous world. here, in the sacred calm of the cloister, surely at length the heart must grow calm, and cease to beat except with the life of the universal church,--the feasts in the calendar becoming its events. but when will that be to me? _march_ . has brother martin attained this repose yet? an aged monk sat with me in my cell yesterday, who told me strange tidings of him, which have given me some kind of bitter comfort. it seems that the monastic life did not at once bring repose into his heart. this aged monk was brother martin's confessor, and he has also been given to me for mine. in his countenance there is such a peace as i long for;--not a still, death-like peace, as if he had fallen into it after the conflict; but a living, kindly peace, as if he had won it through the conflict, and enjoyed it even while the conflict lasted. it does not seem to me that brother martin's scruples and doubts were exactly like mine. indeed, my confessor says that in all the years he has exercised his office, he has never found two troubled hearts troubled exactly alike. i do not know that brother martin doubted his vocation, or looked back to the world; but he seems to have suffered agonies of inward torture. his conscience was so quick and tender, that the least sin wounded him as if it had been the grossest crime. he invoked the saints most devoutly--choosing, as i have done from his example, twenty-one saints, and invoking three every day, so as to honour each every week. he read mass every day, and had an especial devotion for the blessed virgin. he wasted his body with fastings and watching. he never intentionally violated the minutest rule of the order; and yet the more he strove, the more wretched he seemed to be. like a musician whose ear is cultivated to the highest degree, the slightest discord was torture to him. can it then be god's intention that the growth of our spiritual life is only growing sensitiveness to pain? is this true growth?--or is it that monstrous development of one faculty at the expense of others, which is deformity or disease? the confessor said thoughtfully, when i suggested this-- "the world is out of tune, my son, and the heart is out of tune. the more our souls vibrate truly to the music of heaven, the more, perhaps, they must feel the discords of earth. at least it was so with brother martin; until at last, omitting a prostration or a genuflexion would weigh on his conscience like a crime. once, after missing him for some time, we went to the door of his cell, and knocked. it was barred, and all our knocking drew no response. we broke open the door at last, and found him stretched senseless on the floor. we only succeeded in reviving him by strains of sacred music, chanted by the choristers, whom we brought to his cell. he always dearly loved music, and believed it to have a strange potency against the wiles of the devil." "he must have suffered grievously," i said. "i suppose it is by such sufferings merit is acquired to aid others." "he did suffer agonies of mind," replied the old monk. "often he would walk up and down the cold corridors for nights together." "did nothing comfort him?" i asked. "yes, my son; some words i once said to him comforted him greatly. once, when i found him in an agony of despondency in his cell, i said, 'brother martin, dost thou believe in "the forgiveness of sins," as saith the creed?' his face lighted up at once." "the forgiveness of sins!" i repeated slowly. "father, i also believe in that. but forgiveness only follows on contrition, confession, and penance. how can i ever be sure that i have been sufficiently contrite, that i have made an honest and complete confession, or that i have performed my penance aright?" "ah, my son," said the old man, "these were exactly brother martin's perplexities, and i could only point him to the crucified lord, and remind him again of the forgiveness of sins. all we do is incomplete, and when the blessed lord says he forgiveth sins, i suppose he means the sins of _sinners_, who sin in their confession as in everything else. my son, he is more compassionate than you think, perhaps than any of us think. at least this is my comfort; and if, when i stand before him at last, i find i have made a mistake, and thought him more compassionate than he is, i trust he will pardon me. it can scarcely, i think, grieve him so much as declaring him to be a hard master would." i did not say anything more to the old man. his words so evidently were strength and joy to him, that i could not venture to question them further. to me, also, they have given a gleam of hope. and yet, if the way is not rough and difficult, and if it is not a hard thing to please almighty god, why all those severe rules and renunciations--those heavy penances for trifling offences? merciful we know he is. but the emperor may be merciful; and yet, if a peasant were to attempt to enter the imperial presence without the prescribed forms, would he not be driven from the palace with curses, at the point of the sword? and what are those rules at the court of heaven? if perfect purity of heart and life, who can lay claim to that? if a minute attention to the rules of an order such as this of st. augustine, who can be sure of having never failed in this? the inattention which caused the neglect would probably let it glide from the memory. and then, what is the worth of confession? christ is the saviour, but only of those who follow him. there _is_ forgiveness of sins, but only for those who make adequate confession. i, alas! have not followed him fully. what priest on earth can assure me i have ever confessed fully? therefore i see him merciful, gracious, holy--a saviour, but seated on a high throne, where i can never be sure petitions of mine will reach him; and, alas! one day to be seated on a great white throne, whence it is too sure his summoning voice will reach me. mary, mother of god, virgin of virgins, mother of divine grace--holy sebastian and all martyrs--great father augustine and all holy doctors, intercede for me, that my penances may be accepted as a satisfaction for my sins, and may pacify my judge. _march_ .--annunciation of the holy virgin. my preceptor has put into my hands the bible bound in red morocco which brother martin, he says, used to read so much. i am to study it in all the intervals which the study of the fathers, expeditions for begging, the services of the church, and the menial offices in the house which fall to the share of novices, allow. these are not many. i have never had a bible in my hands before, and the hours pass quickly indeed in my cell which i can spend in reading it. the preceptor, when he comes to call me for the midnight service, often finds me still reading. it is very different from what i expected. there is nothing oratorical in it, there are no laboured disquisitions, and no minute rules, at least in the new testament. i wish sometimes i had lived in the old jewish times, when there was one temple wherein to worship, certain definite feasts to celebrate, certain definite ceremonial rules to keep. if i could have stood in the temple courts on that great day of atonement, and seen the victim slain, and watched till the high priest came out from the holy place with his hands lifted up in benediction, i should have known absolutely that god was satisfied, and returned to my home in peace. yes, to my _home_! there were no monasteries, apparently, in those jewish times. family life was god's appointment then, and family affections had his most solemn sanctions. in the new testament, on the contrary, i cannot find any of those definite rules. it is all addressed to the heart; and who can make the heart right? i suppose it is the conviction of this which has made the church since then restore many minute rules and discipline, in imitation of the jewish ceremonial; for in the gospels and epistles i can find no ritual, ceremonial, or definite external rules of any kind. what advantage, then, has the new testament over the old? christ has come. "god so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son." this _ought_ surely to make a great difference between us and the jews. but how? _april_ .--st. gregory of nyssa. i have found, in my reading to-day, the end of eva's sentence--"god so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, _that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life_." how simple the words are!--"believeth;" that would mean, in any other book, "trusteth," "has reliance" in christ;--simply to confide in him, and then receive his promise not to perish. but _here_--in this book, in theology--it is necessarily impossible that believing can mean anything so simple as that; because, at that rate, any one who merely came to the lord jesus christ in confiding trust would have everlasting life, without any further conditions; and this is obviously out of the question. for what can be more simple than to confide in one worthy of confidence? and what can be greater than everlasting life? and yet we know, from all the teaching of the doctors and fathers of the church, that nothing is more difficult than obtaining everlasting life; and that, for this reason, monastic orders, pilgrimages, penances, have been multiplied from century to century; for this reason saints have forsaken every earthly joy, and inflicted on themselves every possible torment;--all to obtain everlasting life, which, if this word "believeth" meant here what it would mean anywhere but in theology, would be offered freely to every petitioner. wherefore it is clear that "believeth," in the scriptures, means something entirely different from what it does in any secular book, and must include contrition, confession, penance, satisfaction, mortification of the flesh, and all else necessary to salvation. shall i venture to send this end of eva's sentence to her? it might mislead her. dare i for her sake?--dare i still more for my own? one hour i have sat before this question; and whither has my heart wandered? what confession can retrace the flood of bitter thoughts which have rushed over me in this one hour? i had watched her grow from childhood into early womanhood; and until these last months, until that week of anguish, i had thought of her as a creature between a child and an angel. i had loved her as a sister who had yet a mystery and a charm about her different from a sister. only when it seemed that death might separate us did it burst upon me that there was something in my affection for her which made her not one among others, but in some strange sacred sense the only one on earth to me. and as i recovered came the hopes i must never more recall, which made all life like the woods in spring, and my heart like a full river set free from its ice-fetters, and flowing through the world in a tide of blessing. i thought of a home which might be, i thought of a sacrament which should transubstantiate all life into a symbol of heaven, a home which was to be peaceful and sacred as a church, because of the meek and pure, and heavenly creature who should minister and reign there. an then came to me that terrible vision of a city smitten by the pestilence which i had brought, with the recollection of the impulse i had had in the forest at midnight, and more than once since then, to take the monastic vows. i felt i was like jonah flying from god; yet still i hesitated until she was stricken. and then i yielded. i vowed if she were saved i would become a monk. not till she was stricken, whose loss would have made the whole world a blank to me: not till the sacrifice was worthless,--did i make it! and will god accept such a sacrifice as this? at least brother martin had not this to reproach himself with. he did not delay his conversion until his whole being had become possessed by an image no prayers can erase; nay, which prayer and holy meditations on heaven itself, only rivet on the heart, as the purest reflection of heaven memory can recall. brother martin, at least did not trifle with his vocation until too late. vii. elsè's story. _january_ . it is too plain now why fritz would not look back as he went down the street. he thought it would be looking back from the kingdom of god. the kingdom of god, then, is the cloister, and the world, _we_ are that!--father, mother, brothers, sisters, friends, home, that is the world! i shall never understand it. for if all my younger brothers say is true, either all the priests and monks are not in the kingdom of god, or the kingdom of god is strangely governed here on earth. fritz was helping us all so much. he would have been the stay of our parents' old age. he was the example and admiration of the boys, and the pride and delight of us all; and to _me_! my heart grows so bitter when i write about it, i seem to hate and reproach every one. every one but fritz; i cannot, of course, hate him. but why was all that was gentlest and noblest in him made to work towards this last dreadful step? if our father had only been more successful, fritz need not have entered on that monastic foundation at erfurt, which made his conscience so sensitive; if my mother had only not been so religious, and taught us to reverence aunt agnes as so much better than herself, he might never have thought of the monastic life; if i had been more religious he might have confided more in me, and i might have induced him to pause, at least, a few years before taking this unalterable step. if eva had not been so wilful, and insisted on braving the contagion from me, she might never have been stricken, and that vow might not yet, might never have been taken. if god had not caused him so innocently to bring the pestilence among us! but i must not dare to say another word of complaint, or it will become blasphemy. doubtless it is god who has willed to bring all this misery on us; and to rebel against god is a deadly sin. as aunt agnes said, "the lord is a jealous god," he will not suffer us to make idols. we must love him best, first, alone. we must make a great void in our heart by renouncing all earthly affections, that he may fill it. we must mortify the flesh, that we may live. what, then, is the flesh? i suppose all our natural affections, which the monks call our fleshly lusts. these fritz has renounced. then if all our natural affections are to die in us, what is to live in us? the "spiritual life," they say in some of the sermons, and "the love of god." but are not my natural affections my _heart_; and if i am not to love god with my heart, with the heart with which i love my father and mother, what am i to love him with? it seems to me, the love of god to us is something quite different from any human being's love to us. when human beings love us they like to have us with them; they delight to make us happy; they delight in our being happy, whether they make us so or not, if it is a right happiness, a happiness that does us good. but with god's love it must be quite different. he warns us not on any account to come too near him. we have to place priests, and saints, and penances between us and him, and then approach him with the greatest caution, lest, after all, it should be in the wrong way, and he should be angry. and, instead of delighting in our happiness, he is never so much pleased as when we renounce all the happiness of our life, and make other people wretched in doing so, as fritz, our own fritz, has just done. therefore, also, no doubt, the love god requires we should feel for him is something entirely different from the love we give each other. it must, i suppose, be a serious, severe, calm adoration, too sublime to give either joy or sorrow, such as had left its stamp on aunt agnes's grave impassive face. i can never, never even attempt to attain to it. certainly at present i have no time to think of it. thank heaven, thou livest still, mother of mercy! in _thy_ face there have been tears, real, bitter, human tears; in _thine_ eyes there have been smiles of joy, real, simple, human joy. thou wilt understand and have pity. yet oh, couldst not thou, even thou, sweet mother, have reminded him of the mother he has left to battle on alone? thou who art a mother, and didst bend over a cradle, and hadst a little lowly home at nazareth once? but i know my own mother would not even herself have uttered a word to keep fritz back. when first we heard of it, and i entreated her to write and remonstrate, although the tears were streaming from her eyes, she said, "not a word, elsè, not a syllable. shall not i give my son up freely to him who gave him to me. god might have called him away from earth altogether when he lay smitten with the plague, and shall i grudge him to the cloister? i shall see him again," she added, "once or twice at least. when he is consecrated priest, shall i not have joy then, and see him in his white robes at the altar, and, perhaps, even receive my creator from his hands!" "once or twice!--o mother!" i sobbed, "and in church, amongst hundreds of others! what pleasure will there be in that?" "elsè," she said softly, but with a firmness unusual with her, "my child, do not say another word. once i myself had some faint inclination to the cloister, which, if i had nourished it, might have grown into a vocation. but i saw your father, and i neglected it. and see what troubles my children have to bear! has there not also been a kind of fatal spell on all your father's inventions? perhaps god will at last accept from me in my son what i withheld in myself, and will be pacified towards us, and send us better days; and then your father's great invention will be completed yet. but do not say anything of what i told you to him!" i have never seen our father so troubled about anything. "just as he was able to understand my projects!" he said, "and i would have bequeathed them all to him!" for some days he never touched a model! but now he has crept back to his old follies and his instruments, and tells us there was something in fritz's horoscope which might have prepared us for this, had he only understood it a little before. however, this discovery, although too late to warn us of the blow, consoles our father, and he has resumed his usual occupations. eva looks very pale and fragile, partly, no doubt, from the effects of the pestilence; but when first the rumour reached us, i sought some sympathy from her, and said, "o eva, how strange it seems, when fritz always thought of us before himself, to abandon us all thus without one word of warning." "cousin elsè," she said, "fritz has done now as he always does. he _has_ thought of us first, i am as sure of it as if i could hear him say so. he thought he would serve us best by leaving us thus, or he would never have left us." she understood him best of all, as she so often does. when his letter came to our mother, it gave just the reasons she had often told me she was sure had moved him. it is difficult to tell what eva feels, because of that strange inward peace in her which seems always to flow under all her other feelings. i have not seen her shed any tears at all; and whilst i can scarcely bear to enter our dear old lumber-room, or to do anything i did with him, her great delight seems to be to read every book he liked, and to learn and repeat every hymn she learned with him. eva and the mother cling very closely together. she will scarcely let my mother do any household work, but insists on sharing every laborious task which hitherto we have kept her from, because of her slight and delicate frame. it is true i rise early to save them all the work i can, because they have neither of them half the strength i have, and i enjoy stirring about. thoughts come so much more bitterly on me when i am sitting still. but when i am kneading the dough, or pounding the clothes with stones in the stream on washing-days, i feel as i were pounding at all my perplexities; and that makes my hands stronger and my perplexities more shadowy, until even now i find myself often singing as i am wringing the clothes by the stream. it is so pleasant in the winter sunshine, with the brook babbling among the rushes and cresses, and little thekla prattling by my side, and pretending to help. but when i have finished my day's work, and come into the house, i find the mother and eva sitting close side by side; and perhaps eva is silent and my mother brushes tears away as they fall on her knitting; but when they look up, their faces are calm and peaceful, and then i know they have been talking about fritz. eisenach, _february_ . yesterday afternoon i found eva translating a latin hymn he loved, to our mother, and then she sang it through in her sweet clear voice. it was about the dear, dear country in heaven, and jerusalem the golden. in the evening i said to her-- "o eva, how can you bear to sing the hymns fritz loved so dearly? i could not sing a line steadily of any song he had cared to hear me sing! and he delighted always so much to listen to you. his voice would echo 'never, never more' to every note i sung, and the songs would all end in sobs." "but i do not feel separated from fritz, cousin elsè," she said, "and i never shall. instead of hearing that melancholy chant you think of, 'never, never more' echo from all the hymns he loved, i always seem to hear his voice responding, 'for ever and for evermore.' and i think of the time when we shall sing them together again." "do you mean in heaven, eva?" i said, "that is so very far off, if we ever reach it--" "not so very far off, cousin elsè," she said. "i often think it is very near. if it were not so, how could the angels be so much with us and yet with god?" "but life seems so long, now fritz is gone." "not so very long, cousin elsè," she said. "i often think it may be very short, and often i pray it may." "eva!" i exclaimed, "you surely do not pray that you may die?" "why not?" she said, very quietly. "i think if god took us to himself, we might help those we love better there than at eisenach, or perhaps even in the convent. and it is there we shall meet again, and there are never any partings. my father told me so," she added, "before he died." then i understood how eva mourns for fritz, and why she does not weep; but i could only say-- "o eva, do not pray to die. there are all the saints in heaven: and you help us so much more here!" _february_ . i cannot feel at all reconciled to losing fritz, nor do i think i ever shall. like all the other troubles, it was no doubt meant to do me good; but it does me none, i am sure, although of course, that is my fault. what did me good was being happy, as i was when fritz came back; and that is passed for ever. my great comfort is our grandmother. the mother and eva look on everything from such sublime heights; but my grandmother feels more as i do. often, indeed, she speaks very severely of fritz, which always does me good, because, of course, i defend him, and then she becomes angry, and says we are an incomprehensible family, and have the strangest ideas of right and wrong, from my father downward, she ever heard of; and then i grow angry, and say my father is the best and wisest man in the electoral states. then our grandmother begins to lament over her poor, dear daughter, and the life she has led, and rejoices, in a plaintive voice, that she herself has nearly done with the world altogether; and then i try to comfort her, and say that i am sure there is not much in the world to make any one wish to stay in it; and, having reached this point of despondency, we both cry and embrace each other, and she says i am a poor, good child, and fritz was always the delight of her heart, which i know very well;--and thus we comfort each other. we have, moreover, solemnly resolved, our grandmother and i, that, whatever comes of it, we will never call fritz anything but fritz. "brother sebastian, indeed!" she said, "your mother might as well take a new husband as your brother a new name! was not she married, and was not he christened in church? is not friedrich a good, honest name, which hundreds of your ancestors have borne? and shall we call him instead a heathen foreign name, that none of your kindred were ever known by?" "not heathen, grandmother," i ventured to suggest. "you remember telling us of the martyrdom of st. sebastian by the heathen emperor?" "do you contradict me, child?" she exclaimed. "did i not know the whole martyrology before your mother was born? i say it is a heathen name. no blame to the saint if his parents were poor benighted pagans, and knew no better name to give him; but that our fritz should adopt it instead of his own is a disgrace. my lips at least are too old to learn such new fashioned nonsense. i shall call him the name i called him at the font and in his cradle, and no other." yes, fritz! fritz! he is to us, and shall be always. fritz in our hearts till death! _february_ . we have just heard that fritz has finished his first month of probation, and has been invested with the frock of the novice. i hate to think of his thick, dark, waving hair clipped in the circle of the tonsure. but the worst part of it is the effect of his becoming a monk has had on the other boys, christopher and pollux. they, who before this thought fritz the model of everything good and great, seem repelled from all religion now. i have difficulty even in getting them to church. christopher said to me the other day-- "elsè, why is a man who suddenly deserts his family to become a soldier called a villain, while the man who deserts those who depend on him to become a monk is called a saint?" it is very unfortunate the boys should come to me with their religious perplexities, because i am so perplexed myself, i have no idea how to answer them. i generally advise them to ask eva. this time i could only say, as our grandmother had so often said to me,-- "you must wait till you are older, and then you will understand." but i added, "of course it is quite different: one leaves his home for god, and the other for the world." but christopher is the worst, and he continued,-- "sister elsè, i do not like the monks at all. you and eva and our mother have no idea how wicked many of them are. reinhardt says he has seen them drunk often, and heard them swear, and that some of them make a jest even of the mass, and that the priests' houses are not fit for any honest maiden to visit, and,-- "reinhardt is a bad boy," i said, colouring; "and i have often told you i do not want to hear anything he says." "but i, at all events, shall never become a monk or a priest," retorted christopher; "i think the merchants are better. woman cannot understand about these things," he added, loftily, "and it is better they should not; but i know; and i intend to be a merchant or a soldier." christopher and pollux are fifteen, and fritz is two-and-twenty; but _he_ never talked in that lofty way to me about women not understanding! it did make me indignant to hear christopher, who is always tearing his clothes, and getting into scrapes, and perplexing us to get him out of them, comparing himself with fritz, and looking down on his sisters; and i said, "it is only _boys_ who talk scornfully of women. men, true men, honour women." "the monks do not!" retorted christopher. "i have heard them say things myself worse than i have ever said about any woman. only last sunday, did not father boniface say half the mischief in the world had been done by women, from eve to helen and cleopatra?" "do not mention our mother eve with those heathens, christopher," said our grandmother, coming to my rescue, from her corner by the stove. "eve is in the holy scriptures, and many of these pagans are not fit for people to speak of. half the saints are women, you know very well. peasants and traders," she added sublimely, "may talk slightingly of women; but no man can be a true knight who does." "the monks do!" muttered christopher doggedly. "i have nothing to say about the monks," rejoined our grandmother tartly. and accepting this imprudent concession of our grandmother's christopher retired from the contest. _march_ . i have just been looking at two letters addressed to father johann braun, one of our eisenach priests, by martin luther. they were addressed to him as "the holy and venerable priest of christ and of mary." so much i could understand, and also that he calls himself brother martin luther, not brother augustine, a name he assumed on first entering the cloister. therefore certainly, i may call our fritz, brother friedrich cotta. _march_ , . a young man was at aunt ursula cotta's this evening, who told us strange things about the doings at annaberg. dr. tetzel has been there two years, selling the papal indulgences to the people; and lately, out of regard, he says, to the great piety of the german people, he has reduced their price. there was a great deal of discussion about it, which i rather regretted the boys were present to hear. my father said indulgences did not mean forgiveness of sins, but only remission of certain penances which the church had imposed. but the young man from annaberg told us that dr. john tetzel solemnly assured the people, that since it was impossible for them, on account of their sins, to make satisfaction to god by their works, our holy father the pope, who has the control of all the treasury of merits accumulated by the church throughout the ages, now graciously sells those merits to any who will buy, and thereby bestows on them forgiveness of sins (even of sins which no other priest can absolve), and a certain entrance into eternal life. the young man said, also, that the great red cross has been erected in the nave of the principal church, with the crown of thorns, the nails, and spear suspended from it, and that at times it has been granted to the people even to see the blood of the crucified flow from the cross. beneath this cross are the banners of the church, and the papal standard, with the triple crown. before it is the large, strong iron money chest. on one side stands the pulpit, where dr. tetzel preaches daily, and exhorts the people to purchase this inestimable favour while yet there is time, for themselves and their relations in purgatory,--and translates the long parchment mandate of the lord pope, with the papal seals hanging from it. on the other side is a table, where sit several priests, with pen, ink, and writing desk, selling the indulgence tickets, and counting the money into boxes. lately he told us, not only have the prices been reduced, but at the end of the letter affixed to the churches, it is added, "_pauperibus dentur gratis_." "freely to the poor!" that certainly would suit us! and if i had only time to make a pilgrimage to annaberg, if this is the kind of religion that pleases god, it certainly might be attainable even for me. if fritz had only known it before, he need not have made that miserable vow. a journey to annaberg would have more than answered the purpose. only, if the pope has such inestimable treasures at his disposal, why could he not always give them "freely to the poor," always and everywhere? but i know it is a sin to question what the lord pope does. i might almost as well question what the lord god almighty does. for he also, who gave those treasures to the pope, is he not everywhere, and could he not give them freely to us direct? it is plain these are questions too high for me. i am not the only one perplexed by those indulgences, however. my mother says it is not the way she was taught, and she had rather keep to the old paths. eva said, "if i were the lord pope, and had such a treasure, i think i could not help instantly leaving my palace and my beautiful rome, and going over the mountains and over the seas, into every city and every village; every hut in the forests, and every room in the lowest streets, that none might miss the blessing, although i had to walk barefoot, and never saw holy rome again." "but then," said our father, "the great church at st. peter's would never be built. it is on that, you know, the indulgence money is to be spent." "but jerusalem the golden would be built, uncle cotta!" said eva; "and would not that be better?" "we had better not talk about it, eva," said the mother. "the holy jerusalem _is_ being built; and i suppose there are many different ways to the same end. only i like the way i know best." the boys, i regret to say, had made many irreverent gestures during this conversation about the indulgences, and afterwards i had to speak to them. "sister elsè," said christopher, "it is quite useless talking to me. i hate the monks, and all belonging to them. and i do not believe a word they say--at least, not because they say it. the boys at school say this dr. tetzel is a very bad man and a great liar. last week reinhardt told us something he did, which will show you what he is. one day he promised to show the people a feather which the devil plucked out the wing of the archangel michael. reinhardt says he supposes the devil gave it to dr. tetzel. however that may be, during the night some students in jest found their way to his relic-box, stole the feather, and replaced it by some coals. the next day, when dr. tetzel had been preaching fervently for a long time on the wonders of this feather, when he opened the box there was nothing in it but charcoal. but he was not to be disconcerted. he merely said, 'i have taken the wrong box of relics, i perceive; these are some most sacred cinders--the relics of the holy body of st. laurence, who was roasted on a gridiron.'" "schoolboys' stories," said i. "they are as good as monks' stories, at all events," rejoined christopher. i resolved to see if pollux was as deeply possessed with this irreverent spirit as christopher, and therefore this morning, when i found him alone, i said, "pollux, you used to love fritz so dearly, you would not surely take up thoughts which would pain him so deeply if he knew of it." "i do love fritz," pollux replied, "but i can never think he was right in leaving us all; and i like the religion of the creeds and the ten commandments better than that of the monks." daily, hourly i feel the loss of fritz. it is not half as much the money he earned; although, of course, that helped us; we can do and struggle on without that. it is the influence he had over the boys. they felt he was before them in the same race and when he remonstrated with them about anything, they listened. but if i blame them, they think it is only a woman's ignorance, or a woman's superstition.--and boys, they say, cannot be like women. and now it is the same with fritz. he is removed into another sphere, which is not theirs; and if i remind them of what he did or said, they say, "yes, fritz thought so; but you know he has become a monk; but we do not intend ever to be monks, and the religion of monks and laymen are different things." _april_ . the spring is come again. i wonder if it sends the thrill of joy into fritz's cell at erfurt that it does into all the forests around us here, and into my heart! i suppose there are trees near him, and birds--little happy birds--making their nests among them, as they do in our yard, and singing as they work. but the birds are not monks. their nests are little homes, and they wander freely whither they will, only brought back by love. perhaps fritz does not like to listen to the birds now, because they remind him of home, and of our long spring days in the forest. perhaps, too, they are part of the world he has renounced; and he must be dead to the world! _april_ . we have had a long day in the forest, gathering sticks and dry twigs. every creature seemed so happy there! it was such a holiday to watch the ants roofing their nests with fir twigs, and the birds flying hither and thither with food for their nestlings; and to hear the wood-pigeons, which fritz always said were like eva, cooing softly in the depths of the forest. at mid-day we sat down in a clearing of the forest, to enjoy the meal we had brought with us. a little quiet brook prattled near us, of which we drank, and the delicate young twigs on the topmost boughs of the dark, majestic pines trembled softly, as if for joy, in the breeze. as we rested, we told each other stories. pollux began with wild tales of demon hunts, which flew with the baying of demon dogs through these very forests at midnight. then, as the children began to look fearfully around, and shiver, even at mid-day, while they listened, christopher delighted them with quaint stories of wolves in sheeps' clothing politely offering themselves to the farmer as shepherds, which, i suspect, were from some dangerous satirical book, but, without the application, were very amusing. chriemhild and atlantis had their stories of kobolds, who played strange tricks in the cow-stall; and of rübezahl and the misshapen dwarf gnomes, who guarded the treasures of gold and silver in the glittering caves under the mountains; and of the elves, who danced beside the brooks at twilight. "and i," said loving little thekla, "always want to see poor nix, the water-sprite, who cries by the streams at moonlight, and lets his tears mix with the waters, because he has no soul, and he wants to live for ever. i should like to give him half mine." we should all of us have been afraid to speak of these creatures, in their own haunts among the pines, if the sun had not been high in the heavens. even as it was, i began to feel a little uneasy, and i wished to turn the conversation from these elves and sprites, who, many think, are the spirits of the old heathen gods, who linger about their haunts. one reason why people think so is, that they dare not venture within the sound of the church bells; which makes some, again, think they are worse than poor, shadowy, dethroned heathen gods, and had, indeed, better be never mentioned at all. i thought i could not do better than tell the legend of my beloved giant offerus, who became christopher and a saint by carrying the holy child across the river. thekla wondered if her favourite nix could be saved in the same way. she longed to see him and tell him about it. but eva had still her story to tell, and she related to us her legend of st. catharine. "st. catharine," she said, "was a lady of royal birth, the only child of the king and queen of egypt. her parents were heathens, but they died and left her an orphan when she was only fourteen. she was more beautiful than any of the ladies of her court, and richer than any princess in the world; but she did not care for pomp, or dress, or all her precious things. god's golden stars seemed to her more magnificent than all the splendour of her kingdom, and she shut herself up in her palace, and studied philosophy and the stars until she grew wiser than all the wise men of the east. "but one day the diet of egypt met, and resolved that their young queen must be persuaded to marry. they sent a deputation to her in her palace, who asked her, if they could find a prince beautiful beyond any, surpassing all philosophers in wisdom, of noblest mind and richest inheritance, would she marry him? the queen replied, 'he must be so noble that all men shall worship him, so great that i shall never think i have made him king, so rich that none shall ever say i enriched him, so beautiful that the angels of god shall desire to behold him. if ye can find such a prince, he shall be my husband and the lord of my heart.' now, near the queen's palace there lived a poor old hermit in a cave, and that very night the holy mother of god appeared to him, and told him the king who should be lord of the queen's heart was none other than her son. then the hermit went to the palace and presented the queen with a picture of the virgin and child; and when st. catharine saw it her heart was so filled with its holy beauty that she forgot her books, her spheres, and the stars; plato and socrates became tedious to her as a twice-told tale, and she kept the sacred picture always before her. then one night she had a dream:--she met on the top of a high mountain a glorious company of angels, clothed in white, with chaplets of white lilies. she fell on her face before them, but they said, 'stand up, dear sister catharine, and be right welcome.' then they led her by the hand to another company of angels more glorious still, clothed in purple with chaplets of red roses. before these, again, she fell on her face, dazzled with their glory; but they said, 'stand up, dear sister catharine; thee hath the king delighted to honour.' then they led her by the hand to an inner chamber of the palace of heaven, where sat a queen in state; and the angels said to her, 'our most gracious sovereign lady, empress of heaven, and mother of the king of blessedness, be pleased that we present unto you this our sister, whose name is in the book of life, beseeching you to accept her as your daughter and handmaid.' then our blessed lady rose and smiled graciously, and led st. catharine to her blessed son; but he turned from her, and said sadly, 'she is not fair enough for me.' then st. catharine awoke, and in her heart all day echoed the words, '_she is not fair enough for me_;' and she rested not until she became a christian and was baptized. and then, after some years, the tyrant maximin put her to cruel tortures, and beheaded her because she was a christian. but the angels took her body, and laid it in a white marble tomb on the top of mount sinai, and the lord jesus christ received her soul, and welcomed her to heaven as his pure and spotless bride; for at last he had made her '_fair enough for him_.' and so she has lived ever since in heaven, and is the sister of the angels." after eva's legend we began our work again; and in the evening, as we returned with our faggots, it was pleasant to see the goats creeping on before the long shadows which evening began to throw from the forests across the green valleys. the hymns which eva sang as we went, seemed quite in tune with everything else. i did not want to understand the words; everything seemed singing in words i could not help feeling,-- "god is good to us all. he gives twigs to the ants, and grain to the birds, and makes the trees their palaces, and teaches them to sing; and will he not care for you?" then the boys were so good! they never gave me a moment's anxiety, not even christopher, but collected faggots twice as large as ours in half the time, and then finished ours, and then performed all kinds of feats in climbing trees and leaping brooks, and brought home countless treasures for thekla. these are the days that always make me feel so much better; even a little religious, and as if i could almost love god! it is only when i come back again into the streets, under the shadow of the nine monasteries, and see the monks and priests in dark robes flitting silently about with downcast eyes, that i remember we are not like the birds or even the ants, for they have never sinned, and that, therefore, god cannot care for us and love us as he seems to do the least of his other creatures, until we have become holy, and worked our way through that great wall of sin which keeps us from him and shadows all our life. eva does not feel thus. as we returned she laid her basket down on the threshold of st. george's church, and crossing herself with holy water, went softly up to the high altar, and there she knelt while the lamp burned before the holy sacrament. and when i looked at her face as she rose, it was beaming with joy. "you are happy, eva, in the church and in the forest," i said to her as we went home; "you seem at home everywhere." "is not god everywhere?" she said; "and has he not loved the world?" "but our _sins_!" i said. "have we not the saviour?" she said, bowing her head. "but think how hard people find it to please him," i said. "think of the pilgrimages, the penances, the indulgences!" "i do not quite understand all that," she said; "i only quite understand my sentence and the crucifix which tells us the son of god died for man. that _must_ have been for love, and i love him; and all the rest i am content to leave." "but to-night as i look at her dear child-like face asleep on the pillow, and see how thin the cheek is which those long lashes shade, and how transparent the little hand on which she rests, a cold fear comes over me lest god should even now be making her spirit "fair enough for him," and so too fair for earth and for us." _april_ . this afternoon i was quite cheered by seeing christopher and pollux bending together eagerly over a book, which they had placed before them on the window sill. it reminded me of fritz, and i went to see what they were reading. i found, however, to my dismay, it was no church-book or learned latin school-book; but, on the contrary, a german book full of woodcuts, which shocked me very much. it was called reinecke fuchs, and as far as i could understand made a jest of everything. there were foxes with monk's frocks, and even in cardinal's hats, and wolves in cassocks with shaven crowns. altogether it seemed to me a very profane and perilous book; but when i took it to our father, to my amazement he seemed as much amused with it as the boys, and said there were evils in the world which were better attacked by jests than by sermons. _april, st mark's day._ i have just heard a sermon about despising the world, from a great preacher, one of the dominican friars, who is going through the land to awaken people to religion. he spoke especially against money, which he called "delusion, and dross, and worthless dust, and a soul-destroying canker." to monks no doubt it may be so; for what could they do with it? but it is not so to me. yesterday money filled my heart with one of the purest joys i have ever known, and made me thank god as i hardly ever thanked him before. the time had come round to pay for some of the printing materials, and we did not know where to turn for the sum we needed. lately i have been employing my leisure hours in embroidering some fine venetian silk aunt ursula gave me; and not having any copies, i had brought in some fresh leaves and flowers from the forest and tried to imitate them, hoping to sell them. when i had finished, it was thought pretty, and i carried it to the merchant, who took the father's precious models, long ago. he has always been kind to us since, and has procured us ink and paper at a cheaper rate than others can buy it. when i showed him my work he seemed surprised, and instead of showing it to his wife, as i had expected, he said smiling,-- "these things are not for poor honest burghers like me. you know my wife might be fined by the sumptuary laws if she aped the nobility by wearing anything so fine as this. i am going to the wartburg to speak about a commission i have executed for the elector-frederick, and if you like i will take you and your embroidery with me." i felt dismayed at first at such an idea, but i had on the new dress fritz gave me a year ago, and i resolved to venture. it was so many years since i had passed through that massive gateway into the great court-yard; and i thought of st. elizabeth distributing loaves, perhaps, at that very gate, and inwardly entreated her to make the elector or the ladies of his court propitious to me. i was left standing what seemed to me a long time in an ante-room. some very gaily-dressed gentlemen and ladies passed me and looked at me rather scornfully. i thought the courtiers were not much improved since the days when they were so rude to st. elizabeth. but at last i was summoned into the elector's presence. i trembled very much, for i thought--if the servants are so haughty, what will the master be? but he smiled on me quite kindly, and said, "my good child, i like this work of thine; and this merchant tells me thou art a dutiful daughter. i will purchase this at once for one of my sisters, and pay thee at once." i was so surprised and delighted with his kindness that i cannot remember the exact words of what he said afterwards, but the substance of them was that the elector is building a new church at his new university town of wittemberg which is to have choicer relics than any church in germany. and i am engaged to embroider altar-cloths and coverings for the reliquaries. and the sum already paid me nearly covers our present debt. no! whatever that dominican preacher might say nothing would ever persuade me that these precious guldens, which i took home yesterday evening with a heart brimming over with joy and thankfulness, which made our father clasp his hands in thanksgiving, and our mother's eyes overflow with happy tears, are mere delusion, or dross, or dust. is not money what _we_ make it? dust in the miser's chests; canker in the proud man's heart; but golden sunbeams, streams of blessing earned by a child's labour and comforting a parent's heart, or lovingly poured from rich men's hands into poor men's homes. _april_ . better days seem dawning at last. dr. martin, who preaches now at the elector's new university of wittemberg, must, we think, have spoken to the elector for us, and our father is appointed to superintend the printing-press especially for latin books, which is to be set up there. and sweeter even than this, it must be from fritz that this boon comes to us. fritz, dear, unselfish fritz, is the benefactor of the family after all. it must have been he who asked dr. martin luther to speak for us. there, in his lonely cell at erfurt, he thinks then of us! and he prays for us. he will never forget us. his new name will not alter his heart. and, perhaps, one day, when the novitiate is over, we may see him again. but to see him as no more our fritz, but brother sebastian!--his home, the augustinian cloister!--his mother, the church!--his sisters, all holy women!--would it not be almost worse than not seeing him at all? we are all to move to wittemberg in a month, except pollux, who is to remain with cousin conrad cotta, to learn to be a merchant. christopher begins to help about the printing. there was another thing also in my visit to the wartburg, which gives me many a gleam of joy when i think of it. if the elector whose presence i so trembled to enter, proved so much more condescending and accessible than his courtiers,--oh, if it could only be possible that we are making some mistake about god, and that he after all may be more gracious and ready to listen to us than his priests, or even than the saints who wait on him in his palace in heaven! viii. fritz's story. erfurt, augustinian convent, _april_ . i suppose conflict of mind working on a constitution weakened by the plague, brought on the illness from which i am just recovering. it is good to feel strength returning as i do. there is a kind of natural irresistible delight in life, however little we have to live for, especially to one so little prepared to die as i am. as i write, the rooks are cawing in the church-yard elms, disputing and chattering like a set of busy prosaic burghers. but retired from all this noisy public life, two thrushes have built their nest in a thorn just under the window of my cell. and early in the morning they wake me with song. he flies hither and thither as busy as a bee, with food for his mate, as she broods secure among the thick leaves, and then he perches on a twig, and sings as if he had nothing to do but to be happy. all is pleasure to him, no doubt--the work as well as the singing. happy the creatures for whom it is god's will that they should live according to their nature, and not contrary to it. probably in the recovering from illness, when the body is still weak, yet thrilling with reviving strength, the heart is especially tender, and yearns more towards home and former life than it will when strength returns and brings duties. or, perhaps, this illness recalls the last,--and the loving faces and soft hushed voices that were around me then. yet i have nothing to complain of. my aged confessor has scarcely left my bed-side. from the first he brought his bed into my cell, and watched over me like a father. and his words minister to my heart as much as his hands to my bodily wants. if my spirit would only take the comfort he offers, as easily as i receive food and medicine from his hands! he does not attempt to combat my difficulties one by one. he says-- "i am little of a physician. i cannot lay my hand on the seat of disease. but there is one who can." and to him i know the simple-hearted old man prays for me. often he recurs to the declaration in the creed, "i believe in the forgiveness of sins." "it is the command of god," he said to me one day, "that we should believe in the forgiveness of sins; not of david's or peter's sins, but of _ours_, our own, the very sins that distress our consciences." he also quoted a sermon of st. bernard's on the annunciation. "the testimony of the holy ghost given in thy heart is this, 'thy sins are forgiven thee.'" yes, forgiven to all _penitents_! but who can assure me i am a true penitent? these words, he told me, comforted brother martin, and he wonders they do not comfort me. i suppose brother martin had "the testimony of the holy ghost in his heart;" but who shall give that to me? to me who resisted the vocation of the holy ghost so long; who in my deepest heart obey it so imperfectly still! brother martin was faithful, honest, thorough, single-hearted,--all that god accepts; all that i am not! the affection and compassion of my aged confessor often, however, comfort me, even when his words have little power. they make me feel a dim hope now and then that the lord he serves may have something of the same pity in his heart. erfurt, _april_ . the vicar-general, staupitz, has visited our convent. i have confessed to him. he was very gentle with me, and to my surprise proscribed me scarcely any penance, although i endeavored to unveil all to him. once he murmured, as if to himself, looking at me with a penetrating compassion, "yes, there is no drawing back. but i wish i had known this before." and then he added to me, "brother, we must not confuse suffering with sin. it is sin to _turn_ back. it may be anguish to _look_ back and see what we have renounced, but it is not necessarily sin, if we resolutely press forward still. and if sin mingles with the regret, remember we have to do not with a painted, but a real saviour; and he died not for painted, but for real sins. sin is never overcome by looking at it, but by looking away from it to him who bore our sins, yours and mine, on the cross. the heart is never won back to god by thinking we ought to love him, but by learning what he is, all worthy of our love. true repentance begins with the love of god. the holy spirit teaches us to know, and, therefore, to love god. fear not, but read the scriptures, and pray. he will employ thee in his service yet, and in his favour is life, and in his service is freedom." this confession gave me great comfort for the time. i felt myself understood, and yet not despaired of. and that evening, after repeating the hours, i ventured in my own words to pray to god, and found it solemn and sweet. but since then my old fear has recurred. did i indeed confess completely even to the vicar-general? if i had, would not his verdict have been different? does not the very mildness of his judgment prove that i have once more deceived myself--made a false confession, and, therefore, failed of the absolution! but it is a relief to have his positive command as my superior to study the holy scriptures, instead of the scholastic theologians, to whose writings my preceptor had lately been exclusively directing my studies. _april_ . i have this day, to my surprise, received a command, issuing from the vicar-general, to prepare to set off on a mission to rome. the monk under whose direction i am to journey i do not yet know. the thought of the new scenes we shall pass through, and the wonderful new world we shall enter on,--new and old,--fills me with an almost childish delight. since i heard it, my heart and conscience seem to have become strangely lightened, which proves, i fear, how little real earnestness there is in me. another thing, however, has comforted me greatly. in the course of my confession i spoke to the vicar-general about my family, and he has procured for my father an appointment as superintendent of the latin printing press, at the elector's new university of wittemberg. i trust now that the heavy pressure of pecuniary care which has weighed so long on my mother and elsè will be relieved. it would have been sweeter to me to have earned this relief for them by my own exertions. but we must not choose the shape or the time in which divine messengers shall appear. the vicar-general has, moreover, presented me with a little volume of sermons by a pious dominican friar, named tauler. these are wonderfully deep and heart-searching. i find it difficult to reconcile the sublime and enrapt devotion to god which inspires them, with the minute rules of our order, the details of scholastic casuistry, and the precise directions as to the measure of worship and honour, dulia, hyperdulia, and latria to be paid to the various orders of heavenly beings, which make prayer often seem as perplexing to me as the ceremonial of the imperial court would to a peasant of the thuringian forest. this dominican speaks as if we might soar above all these lower things, and lose ourselves in the one ineffable source, ground, beginning, and end of all being; the one who is all. dearer to me, however, than this, is an old manuscript in our convent library, containing the confessions of the patron of our order himself, the great father augustine. straight from his heart it penetrates into mine, as if spoken to me to-day. passionate, fervent, struggling, wandering, trembling, adoring heart, i feel its pulses through every line! and was this the experience of one who is now a saint on the most glorious heights of heaven? then the mother! patient, lowly, noble, saintly monica; mother, and more than martyr. she rises before me in the likeness of a beloved form i may remember, without sin, even here, even now. st. monica speaks to me with my mother's voice; and in the narrative of her prayers i seem to gain a deeper insight into what my mother's have been for me. st. augustine was happy, to breathe the last words of comfort to herself as he did, to be with her dwelling in one house to the last. this can scarcely be given to me. "that sweet habit of living together" is broken for ever between us; broken by my deliberate act. "for the glory of god!" may god accept it; if not, may he forgive! that old manuscript is worn with reading. it has lain in the convent library for certainly more than a hundred years. generation after generation of those who now lie sleeping in the field of god below our windows have turned over those pages. heart after heart has doubtless come, as i came, to consult the oracle of that deep heart of old times, so nearly shipwrecked, so gloriously saved. as i read the old thumbed volume, a company of spirits seems to breathe in fellowship around me, and i think how many, strengthened by these words, are perhaps, even now, like him who penned them, amongst the spirits of the just made perfect. in the convent library, the dead seem to live again around me. in the cemetery are the relics of the corruptible body. among these worn volumes i feel the breath of the living spirits of generations passed away. i must say, however, there is more opportunity for solitary communion with the departed in that library than i could wish. the books are not so much read, certainly, in these days, as the vicar-general would desire, although the augustinian has the reputation of being among the more learned orders. i often question what brought many of these easy comfortable monks here. but many of the faces give no reply to my search. no history seems written on them. the wrinkles seem mere ruts of the wheels of time, not furrows sown with the seeds of thought,--happy at least if they are not as fissures rent by the convulsions of inward fires. i suppose many of the brethren became monks just as other men become tailors or shoemakers, and with no further spiritual aim, because their parents planned it so. but i may wrong even the meanest in saying so. the shallowest human heart has depths somewhere, let them be crusted over by ice ever so thick, or veiled by flowers ever so fair. and i--i and this unknown brother are actually about to journey to italy, the glorious land of sunshine, and vines, and olives, and ancient cities--the land of rome, imperial, saintly rome, where countless martyrs sleep, where st. augustine and monica sojourned, where st. paul and st. peter preached and suffered,--where the vicar of christ lives and reigns? _may_ . the brother with whom i am to make the pilgrimage to rome, arrived last night. to my inexpressible delight it is none other than brother martin--martin luther! professor of theology in the elector's new university of wittemberg. he is much changed again since i saw him last, toiling through the streets of erfurt with the sack on his shoulder. the hollow, worn look, has disappeared from his face, and the fire has come back to his eyes. their expression varies, indeed, often from the sparkle of merriment to a grave earnestness, when all their light seems withdrawn inward; but underneath there is that kind of repose i have noticed in the countenance of my aged confessor. brother martin's face has, indeed, a history written on it, and a history, i deem, not yet finished. heidelberg, _may_ . i wondered at the lightness of heart with which i set out on our journey from erfurt. the vicar-general himself accompanied us hither. we travelled partly on horseback, and partly in wheeled carriages. the conversation turned much on the prospects of the new university, and the importance of finding good professors of the ancient languages for it. brother martin himself proposed to make use of his sojourn at rome, to improve himself in greek and hebrew, by studying under the learned greeks and rabbis there. they counsel me also to do the same. the business which calls us to rome is an appeal to the holy father, concerning a dispute between some convents of our order and the vicar-general. but they say business is slowly conducted at rome, and will leave us much time for other occupations besides those which are most on our hearts, namely, paying homage at the tombs of the holy apostles and martyrs. they speak most respectfully and cordially of the elector frederick, who must indeed be a very devout prince. not many years since, he accomplished a pilgrimage to jerusalem, and took with him the painter lucas cranach, to make drawings of the various holy places. about ten years since, he built a church dedicated to st. ursula, on the site of the small chapel erected in , over the holy thorn from the crown of thorns, presented to a former elector by the king of france. this church is already, they say, through the elector frederick's diligence, richer in relics than any church in europe, except that of assisi, the birth-place of st. francis. and the collection is still continually being increased. they showed me a book printed at wittemberg a year or two since, entitled "a description of the venerable relics," adorned with one hundred and nineteen woodcuts. the town itself seems to be still poor and mean compared with eisenach and erfurt; and the students, of whom there are now nearly five hundred, are at times very turbulent. there is much beer-drinking among them. in , three years since, the bishop of brandenburg laid the whole city under interdict for some insult offered by the students to his suite, and now they are forbidden to wear guns, swords, or knives. brother martin, however, is full of hope as to the good to be done among them. he himself received the degree of biblicus (bible teacher) on the th of march last year; and every day he lectures between twelve and one o'clock. last summer, for the first time, he was persuaded by the vicar-general to preach publicly. i heard some conversation between them in reference to this, which afterwards brother martin explained to me. dr. staupitz and brother martin were sitting last summer in the convent garden at wittemberg together, under the shade of a pear tree, whilst the vicar-general endeavoured to prevail on him to preach. he was exceedingly unwilling to make the attempt. "it is no little matter," said he to dr. staupitz, "to appear before the people in the place of god." "i had fifteen arguments," he continued in relating it to me, "wherewith i purposed to resist my vocation; but they availed nothing." at the last i said, "dr. staupitz, you will be the death of me, for i cannot live under it three months." "very well," replied dr. staupitz, "still go on. our lord god hath many great things to accomplish, and he has need of wise men in heaven as well as in earth." brother martin could not further resist, and after making a trial before the brethren in the refectory, at last, with a trembling heart, he mounted the pulpit of the little chapel of the augustinian cloister. "when a preacher for the first time enters the pulpit," he concluded, "no one would believe how fearful he is; he sees so many heads before him. when i go into the pulpit, i do not look on any one. i think them only to be so many blocks before me, and i speak out the words of my god." and yet dr. staupitz says his words are like thunder-peals. _yet!_ do i say? is it not _because_? he feels himself nothing; he feels his message everything; he feels god present. what more could be needed to make a man of his power a great preacher? with such discourse the journey seemed accomplished quickly indeed. and yet, almost the happiest hours to me were those when we were all silent, and the new scenes passed rapidly before me. it was a great rest to live for a time on what i saw, and cease from thought, and remembrance, and inward questionings altogether. for have i not been commanded this journey by my superiors, so that in accordance with my vow of obedience, my one duty at present is to travel; and therefore what pleasure it chances to bring i must not refuse. we spent some hours in nüremberg. the quaint rich carvings of many of the houses were beautiful. there also we saw albrecht dürer's paintings, and heard hans sachs, the shoemaker and poet, sing his godly german hymns. and as we crossed the bavarian plains, the friendliness of the simple peasantry made up to us for the sameness of the country. near heidelberg again i fancied myself once more in the thuringian forest, especially as we rested in the convent of erbach in the odenwald. again the familiar forests and green valleys with their streams were around me. i fear elsè and the others will miss the beauty of the forest-covered hills around eisenach, when they remove to wittemberg, which is situated on a barren, monotonous flat. about this time they will be moving! brother martin has held many disputations on theological and philosophical questions in the university of heidelberg; but i, being only a novice, have been free to wander whither i would. this evening it was delightful to stand in the woods of the elector palatine's castle, and from among the oaks and delicate birches rustling about me, to look down on the hills of the odenwald folding over each other. far up among them i traced the narrow, quiet neckar, issuing from the silent depths of the forest; while on the other side, below the city, it wound on through the plain to the rhine, gleaming here and there with the gold of sunset or the cold grey light of the evening. beyond, far off, i could see the masts of ships on the rhine. i scarcely know why, the river made me think of life, of mine and brother martin's. already he has left the shadow of the forests. who can say what people his life will bless, what sea it will reach, and through what perils? of this i feel sure, it will matter much to many what its course shall be. for me it is otherwise. my life, as far as earth is concerned, seems closed,--ended; and it can matter little to any, henceforth, through what regions it passes, if only it reaches the ocean at last, and ends, as they say, in the bosom of god. if only we could be sure that god guides the course of our lives as he does that of rivers! and yet, do they not say that some rivers lose themselves in sandwastes, and others trickle meanly to the sea through lands they have desolated into untenantable marshes? black forest, _may_ , . brother martin and i are now fairly on our pilgrimage alone, walking all day, begging our provisions and our lodgings, which he sometimes repays by performing a mass in the parish church, or by a promise of reciting certain prayers or celebrating masses on the behalf of our benefactors, at rome. these are, indeed, precious days. my whole frame seems braced and revived by the early rising, the constant movement in the pure air, the pressing forward to a definite point. but more, infinitely more than this, my heart seems reviving. i begin to have a hope and see a light which, until now, i scarcely deemed possible. to encourage me in my perplexities and conflicts, brother martin unfolded to me what his own had been. to the storm of doubt, and fear, and anguish in that great heart of his my troubles seem like a passing spring shower. yet to me they were tempests which laid my heart waste. and god, brother martin believes, does not measure his pity by what our sorrows are in themselves, but what they are to us. are we not all children, little children, in his sight? "i did not learn my divinity at once," he said, "but was constrained by my temptations to search deeper and deeper; for no man without trials and temptations can attain a true understanding of the holy scriptures. st. paul had a devil that beat him with fists, and with temptations drove him diligently to study the holy scriptures. temptations hunted me into the bible, wherein i sedulously read; and thereby, god be praised, at length attained a true understanding of it." he then related to me what some of these temptations were;--the bitter disappointment it was to him to find that the cowl, and even the vows and the priestly consecration, made no change in his heart; that satan was as near him in the cloister as outside, and he no stronger to cope with him. he told me of his endeavours to keep every minute rule of the order, and how the slightest deviation weighed on his conscience. it seems to have been like trying to restrain a fire by a fence of willows, or to guide a mountain torrent in artificial windings through a flower-garden, to bind his fervent nature by these vexatious rules. he was continually becoming absorbed in some thought or study, and forgetting all the rules, and then painfully he would turn back and retrace his steps; sometimes spending weeks in absorbing study, and then remembering he had neglected his canonical hours, and depriving himself of sleep for nights to make up the missing prayers. he fasted, disciplined himself, humbled himself to perform the meanest offices for the meanest brother; forcibly kept sleep from his eyes wearied with study, and his mind worn out with conflict, until every now and then nature avenged herself by laying him unconscious on the floor of his cell, or disabling him by a fit of illness. but all in vain; his temptations seemed to grow stronger, his strength less. love to god he could not feel at all; but in his secret soul the bitterest questioning of god, who seemed to torment him at once by the law and the gospel. he thought of christ as the severest judge, because the most righteous; and the very phrase, "the righteousness of god," was torture to him. not that this state of distress was continual with him. at times he gloried in his obedience, and felt that he earned rewards from god by performing the sacrifice of the mass, not only for himself, but for others. at times, also, in his circuits, after his consecration, to say mass in the villages around erfurt, he would feel his spirits lightened by the variety of the scenes he witnessed, and would be greatly amused at the ridiculous mistakes of the village choirs; for instance, their chanting the "kyrie" to the music of the "gloria." then, at other times, his limbs would totter with terror when he offered the holy sacrifice, at the thought that he, the sacrificing priest, yet the poor, sinful brother martin, actually stood before god "without a mediator." at his first mass he had difficulty in restraining himself from flying from the altar--so great was his awe and the sense of his unworthiness. had he done so, he would have been excommunicated. again, there were days when he performed the services with some satisfaction, and would conclude with saying, "o lord jesus, i come to thee and entreat thee to be pleased with whatsoever i do and suffer in my order; and i pray thee that these burdens and this straitness of my rule and religion may be a full satisfaction for all my sins." yet then again, the dread would come that perhaps he had inadvertently omitted some word in the service, such as "enim" or "æternum," or neglected some prescribed genuflexion, or even a signing of the cross; and that thus, instead of offering to god an acceptable sacrifice in the mass, he had committed a grievous sin. from such terrors of conscience he fled for refuge to some of his twenty-one patron saints, or oftener to mary, seeking to touch her womanly heart, that she might appease her son. he hoped that by invoking three saints daily, and by letting his body waste away with fastings and watchings, he should satisfy the law, and shield his conscience against the goad of the driver. but it all availed him nothing. the further he went on in this way, the more he was terrified. and then he related to me how the light broke upon his heart; slowly, intermittently, indeed; yet it has dawned on him. his day may often be dark and tempestuous; but it is day, and not night. dr. staupitz was the first who brought him any comfort. the vicar-general received his confession not long after he entered the cloister, and from that time won his confidence, and took the warmest interest in him. brother martin frequently wrote to him; and once he used the words, in reference to some neglect of the rules which troubled his conscience, "oh, my sins, my sins!" dr. staupitz replied, "you would be without sin, and yet you have no proper sins. christ forgives true sins, such as parricide, blasphemy, contempt of god, adultery, and sins like these. these are sins indeed. you must have a register in which stand veritable sins, if christ is to help you. you would be a painted sinner, and have a painted christ as a saviour. you must make up your mind that christ is a real saviour, and you a real sinner." these words brought some light to brother martin, but the darkness came back again and again; and tenderly did dr. staupitz sympathize with him and rouse him--dr. staupitz, and that dear aged confessor, who ministered also so lovingly to me. brother martin's great terror was the thought of the righteousness of god, by which he had been taught to understand his inflexible severity in executing judgment on sinners. dr. staupitz and the confessor explained to him that the righteousness of god is not _against_ the sinner who believes in the lord jesus christ, but _for_ him--not against us to condemn, but for us to justify. he began to study the bible with a new zest. he had had the greatest longing to understand rightly the epistle of st. paul to the romans, but was always stopped by the word "righteousness" in the first chapter and seventeenth verse, where paul says the righteousness of god is revealed by the gospel. "i felt very angry," he said, "at the term, 'righteousness of god;' for, after the manner of all the teachers, i was taught to understand it in a philosophic sense, of that righteousness by which god is just and punisheth the guilty. though i had lived without reproach, i felt myself to be a great sinner before god, and was of a very quick conscience, and had not confidence in a reconciliation with god to be produced by any work or satisfaction or merit of my own. for this cause i had in me no love of a righteous and angry god, but secretly hated him, and thought within myself, is it not enough that god has condemned us to everlasting death by adam's sin, and that we must suffer so much trouble and misery in this life? over and above the terror and threatening of the law, must he needs increase by the gospel our misery and anguish, and, by the preaching of the same, thunder against us his justice and fierce wrath? my confused conscience ofttimes did cast me into fits of anger, and i sought day and night to make out the meaning of paul; and at last i came to apprehend it thus: through the gospel is revealed the righteousness which availeth with god--a righteousness by which god, in his mercy and compassion, justifieth us; as is it written, '_the just shall live by faith._' straightway i felt as if i were born anew; it was as if i had found the door of paradise thrown wide open. now i saw the scriptures altogether in a new light--ran through their whole contents as far as my memory would serve, and compared them--and found that this righteousness was the more surely that by which he makes us righteous, because everything agreed thereunto so well. the expression, 'the righteousness of god,' which i so much hated before, became now dear and precious--my darling and most comforting word. that passage of paul was to me the true door of paradise." brother martin also told me of the peace the words, "i believe in the forgiveness of sins," brought to him, as the aged confessor had previously narrated to me; for, he said, the devil often plucked him back, and, taking the very form of christ, sought to terrify him again with his sins. as i listened to him, the conviction came on me that he had indeed drunk of the well-spring of everlasting life, and it seemed almost within my own reach; but i said-- "brother martin, your sins were mere transgressions of human rules, but mine are different." and i told him how i had resisted my vocation. he replied-- "the devil gives heaven to people before they sin; but after they sin, brings their consciences into despair. christ deals quite in the contrary way, for he gives heaven after sins committed, and makes troubled consciences joyful." then we fell into a long silence, and from time to time, as i looked at the calm which reigned on his rugged and massive brow, and felt the deep light in his dark eyes, the conviction gathered strength-- "this solid rock on which that tempest-tossed spirit rests is truth!" his lips moved now and then, as if in prayer, and his eyes were lifted up from time to time to heaven, as if his thoughts found a home there. after this silence, he spoke again and said-- "the gospel speaks nothing of our works or of the works of the law, but of the inestimable mercy and love of god towards most wretched and miserable sinners. our most merciful father, seeing us overwhelmed and oppressed with the curse of the law, and so to be holden under the same, that we could never be delivered from it by our own power, sent his only son into the world, and laid upon him the sins of all men, saying, 'be thou peter, that denier; paul, that persecutor, blasphemer, and cruel oppressor; david, that adulterer; that sinner that did eat the apple in paradise; that thief that hanged upon the cross; and briefly, be thou the person that hath committed the sins of all men, and pay and satisfy for them.' for god trifleth not with us, but speaketh earnestly and of great love, that christ is the lamb of god who beareth the sins of us all. he is just, and the justifier of him that believeth in jesus." i could answer nothing to this, but walked along pondering these words. neither did he say any more at that time. the sun was sinking low, and the long shadows of the pine trunks were thrown athwart our green forest-path, so that we were glad to find a charcoal-burner's hut, and to take shelter for the night beside his fires. but that night i could not sleep; and when all were sleeping around me, i rose and went out into the forest. brother martin is not a man to parade his inmost conflicts before the eyes of others, to call forth their sympathy or their idle wonder. he has suffered too deeply and too recently for that. it is not lightly that he has unlocked the dungeons and torture-chambers of his past life for me. it is as a fellow-sufferer and a fellow-soldier, to show me how i also may escape and overcome. it is surely because he is to be a hero and a leader of men that god has caused him to tread these bitter ways alone. a new meaning dawns on old words for me. there is nothing new in what he says, but it seems new to me, as if god had spoken it first to-day; and all things seem made new in its light. god, then, is more earnest for me to be saved than i am to be saved! "he so loved the world, that he gave his son." he loved not saints, not penitents, not the religious, not those who love him; but "the _world_," secular men, profane men, hardened rebels, hopeless wanderers and sinners! he gave not a mere promise, not an angel to teach us, not a world to ransom us, but his son--his only-begotten! so much did god love the world, sinners, me! i believe this; i must believe it; i believe in him who says it. how can i then do otherwise than rejoice? two glorious visions rise before me and begin to fill the world and all my heart with joy. i see the holiest, the perfect, the son made the victim, the lamb, the curse, willingly yielding himself up to death on the cross for me. i see the father--inflexible in justice yet delighting in mercy--accepting him, the spotless lamb whom he had given; raising him from the dead; setting him on his right hand. just, beyond all my terrified conscience could picture him, he justifies me the sinner. hating sin as love must abhor selfishness, and life death, and purity corruption, he loves me--the selfish, the corrupt, the dead in sins. he gives his son, the only-begotten, for me; he accepts his son, the spotless lamb, for me; he forgives me; he acquits me; he will make me pure. the thought overpowered me. i knelt among the pines and spoke to him who hears when we have no words, for words failed me altogether then. munich, _may_ . all the next day and the next that joy lasted. every twig, and bird, and dew-drop spoke in parables to me; sang to me the parable of the son who had returned from the far country, and as he went towards his father's house prepared his confession; but never finished the journey, for the father met him when he was yet a great way off; and never finished the confession, for the father stopped his self-reproaches with embraces. and on the father's heart what child could say, "make me as one of thy hired servants?" i saw his love shining in every dew-drop on the grassy forest glades; i heard it in the song of every bird; i felt it in every pulse. i do not know that we spoke much during those days, brother martin and i. i have known something of love; but i have never felt a love that so fills, overwhelms, satisfies, as this love of god. and when first it is "thou and i" between god and the soul, for a time, at least, the heart has little room for other fellowship. but then came doubts and questionings. whence came they! brother martin said from satan. "the devil is a wretched, unhappy spirit," said he, "and he loves to make us wretched." one thing that began to trouble me was, whether i had the right kind of faith. old definitions of faith recurred to me, by which faith is said to be nothing unless it is informed with charity and developed into good works, so that when it saith we are justified by faith, the part is taken for the whole--and it means by faith, also hope, charity, all the graces, and all good works. but brother martin declared it meaneth simply believing. he said,-- "faith is an almighty thing, for it giveth glory to god, which is the highest service that can be given to him. now, to give glory to god, is to believe in him; to count him true, wise, righteous, merciful, almighty. the chiefest thing god requireth of man is, that he giveth unto him his glory and divinity; that is to say, that he taketh him not for an idol, but for god; who regardeth him, heareth him, showeth mercy unto him, and helpeth him. for faith saith thus, 'i believe thee, o god, when thou speakest.'" but our great wisdom, he says, is to look away from all these questionings,--from our sins, our works, ourselves, to christ, who is our righteousness, our saviour, our all. then at times other things perplex me. if faith is so simple, and salvation so free, why all those orders, rules, pilgrimages, penances? and to these perplexities we can neither of us find any answer. but we must be obedient to the church. what we cannot understand we must receive and obey. this is a monk's duty, at least. then at times another temptation comes on me. "if thou hadst known of this before," a voice says deep in my heart, "thou couldst have served god joyfully in thy home, instead of painfully in the cloister; couldst have helped thy parents and elsè, and spoken with eva on these things, which her devout and simple heart has doubtless received already." but, alas! i know too well what tempter ventures to suggest that name to me, and i say, "whatever might have been, malicious spirit, _now_ i am a religious, a devoted man, to whom it is perdition to draw back!" yet, in a sense, i seem less separated from my beloved ones during these past days. there is a brotherhood, there is a family, more permanent than the home at eisenach, or even the order of st. augustine, in which we may be united still. there is a home in which, perhaps, we may yet be one household again. and meantime, god may have some little useful work for me to do here, which in his presence may make life pass as quickly as this my pilgrimage to rome in brother martin's company. benedictine monastery in lombardy. god has given us during these last days to see, as i verily believe, some glimpses into eden. the mountains with snowy summits, like the white steps of his throne; the rivers which flow from them and enrich the land; the crystal seas, like glass mingled with fire, when the reflected snow-peaks burn in the lakes at dawn or sunset; and then this lombard plain, watered with rivers which make its harvests gleam like gold; this garner of god, where the elms or chestnuts grow among the golden maize, and the vines festoon the trees, so that all the land seems garlanded for a perpetual holy day. we came through the tyrol by füssen, and then struck across by the mountains and the lakes to milan. now we are entertained like princes in this rich benedictine abbey. its annual income is , florins. "of eating and feasting," as brother martin says, "there is no lack;" for , florins are consumed on guests, and as large a sum on building. the residue goeth to the convent and the brethren. they have received us poor german monks with much honour, as a deputation from the great augustinian order to the pope. the manners of these southern people are very gentle and courteous; but they are lighter in their treatment of sacred things than we could wish. the splendour of the furniture and dress amazes us; it is difficult to reconcile it with the vows of poverty and renunciation of the world. but i suppose they regard the vow of poverty as binding not on the community, but only on the individual monk. it must, however, at the best, be hard to live a severe and ascetic life amidst such luxuries. many, no doubt, do not try. the tables are supplied with the most costly and delicate viands; the walls are tapestried; the dresses are of fine silk; the floors are inlaid with rich marbles. poor, poor splendours, as substitutes for the humblest _home_! bologna, _june_. we did not remain long in the benedictine monastery, for this reason: brother martin, i could see, had been much perplexed by their luxurious living; but as a guest, had, i suppose, scarcely felt at liberty to remonstrate, until friday came, when, to our amazement, the table was covered with meats and fruits, and all kinds of viands, as on any other day, regardless not only of the rules of the order, but of the common laws of the whole church. he would touch none of these dainties; but not content with this silent protest, he boldly said before the whole company, "the church and the pope forbid such things!" we had then an opportunity of seeing into what the smoothness of these italian manners can change when ruffled. the whole brotherhood burst into a storm of indignation. their dark eyes flashed, their white teeth gleamed with scornful and angry laughter, and their voices rose in a tempest of vehement words, many of which were unintelligible to us. "intruders," "barbarians," "coarse and ignorant germans," and other biting epithets, however, we could too well understand. brother martin stood like a rock amidst the torrent, and threatened to make their luxury and disorder known at rome. when the assembly broke up, we noticed the brethren gather apart in small groups, and cast scowling glances at us when we chanced to pass near. that evening the porter of the monastery came to us privately, and warned us that this convent was no longer a safe resting-place for us. whether this was a friendly warning, or merely a device of the brethren to get rid of troublesome guests, i know not; but we had no wish to linger, and before the next day dawned we crept in the darkness out of a side gate into a boat, which we found on the river which flows beneath the walls, and escaped. it was delightful to-day winding along the side of a hill, near bologna, for miles, under the flickering shade of trellises covered with vines. but brother martin, i thought, looked ill and weary. bologna. thank god, brother martin is reviving again. he has been on the very borders of the grave. whether it was the scorching heat through which we have been travelling, or the malaria, which affected us with catarrh one night when we slept with our windows open, or whether the angry monks in the benedictine abbey mixed some poison with our food, i know not; but we had scarcely reached this place when he became seriously ill. as i watched beside him i learned something of the anguish he passed through at our convent at erfurt. the remembrance of his sins and the terrors of god's judgment rushed on his mind, weakened by suffering. at times he recognized that it was the hand of the evil one which was keeping him down. "the devil," he would say, "is the accuser of the brethren, not christ. thou, lord jesus, art my forgiving saviour!" and then he would rise above the floods. again his mind would bewilder itself with the unfathomable--the origin of evil, the relation of our free will to god's almighty will. then i ventured to recall to him the words of dr. staupitz he had repeated to me: "behold the wounds of jesus christ, and then thou shall see the counsel of god clearly shining forth. we cannot comprehend god out of jesus christ. in christ you will find what god is, and what he requires. you will find him nowhere else, whether in heaven or on earth." it was strange to find myself, untried recruit that i am, thus attempting to give refreshment to such a veteran and victor as brother martin; but when the strongest are brought into single combats such as these, which must be single, a feeble hand may bring a draught of cold water to revive the hero between the pauses of the fight. the victory, however, can only be won by the combatant himself; and at length brother martin fought his way through once more, and as so often happens, just when the fight seemed hottest. it was with an old weapon he overcame--"_the just shall live by faith._" once more the words which have helped him so often, which so frequently he has repeated on this journey, came with power to his mind. again he looked to the crucified saviour; again he believed in him triumphant and ready to forgive on the throne of grace; and again his spirit was in the light. his strength also soon began to return; and in a few days we are to be in rome. rome. the pilgrimage is over. the holy city is at length reached. across burning plains, under trellised vine-walks on the hill-sides, over wild, craggy mountains, through valleys green with chestnuts, and olives, and thickets of myrtle, and fragrant with lavender and cistus, we walked, until at last the sacred towers and domes burst on our sight, across a reach of the campagna--the city where st. paul and st. peter were martyred--the metropolis of the kingdom of god. the moment we came in sight of the city brother martin prostrated himself on the earth, and, lifting up his hands to heaven, exclaimed-- "hail, sacred rome! thrice sacred for the blood of the martyrs here shed." and now we are within the sacred walls, lodged in the augustinian monastery, near to the northern gate, through which we entered, called by the romans the "porta del popolo." already brother martin has celebrated a mass in the convent church. and to-morrow we may kneel where apostles and martyrs stood! we may perhaps even see the holy father himself! are we indeed nearer heaven here? it seems to me as i felt god nearer that night in the black forest. there is so much tumult, and movement, and pomp around us in the great city. when, however, i feel it more familiar and home-like, perhaps it will seem more heaven-like. ix. elsè's story. eisenach, _april_. the last words i shall write in our dear old lumber-room, fritz's and mine! i have little to regret in it now, however, that our twilight talks are over for ever. we leave early to-morrow morning for wittemberg. it is strange to look out into the old street, and think how all will look exactly the same there to-morrow evening,--the monks slowly pacing along in pairs, the boys rushing out of school, as they are now, the maid-servants standing at the doors with the baby in their arms, or wringing their mops,--and we gone. how small a blank people seem to make when they are gone, however large the space they seemed to fill when they were present--except, indeed, to two or three hearts! i see this with fritz. it seemed to me our little world must fall when he, its chief pillar, was withdrawn. yet now everything seems to go on the same as before he became a monk,--except, indeed, with the mother and eva and me. the mother seems more and more like a shadow gliding in and out among us. tenderly, indeed, she takes on her all she can of our family cares; but to family joys she seems spiritless and dead. since she told me of the inclination she thinks she neglected in her youth towards the cloister, i understand her better,--the trembling fear with which she receives any good thing, and the hopeless submission with which she bows to every trouble, as to the blows of a rod always suspended over her, and only occasionally mercifully withheld from striking. in the loss of fritz the blow has fallen exactly where she would feel it most keenly. she had, i feel sure, planned another life for him. i see it in the peculiar tenderness of the tie which binds her to eva. she said to me to-day, as we were packing up some of fritz's books, "the sacrifice i was too selfish to make myself my son has made for me. o elsè, my child, give at once, _at once_, whatever god demands of you. what he demands must be given at last; and if only wrung out from us at last, god only knows with what fearful interest the debt may have to be paid." the words weigh on me like a curse. i cannot help feeling sometimes, as i know she feels always, that the family is under some fatal spell. but oh, how terrible the thought is that this is the way god exacts retribution!--a creditor, exacting to the last farthing for the most trifling transgression; and if payment is delayed, taking life or limb, or what is dearer, in exchange. i cannot bear to think of it. for if my mother is thus visited for a mistake, for neglecting a doubtful vocation, my pious, sweet mother, what hope is there for me, who scarcely pass a day without having to repent of saying some sharp word to those boys (who certainly are often very provoking), or doing what i ought not, or omitting some religious duty, or at least without envying some one who is richer, or inwardly murmuring at our lot,--even sometimes thinking bitter thoughts of our father and his discoveries! our dear father has at last arranged and fitted in all his treasures, and is the only one, except the children, who seems thoroughly pleased at the thought of our emigration. all day he has been packing, and unpacking, and repacking his machines into some specially safe corners of the great wagon which cousin conrad cotta has lent us for our journey. eva, on the other hand, seems to belong to this world as little as the mother. not that she looks depressed or hopeless. her face often perfectly beams with peace; but it seems entirely independent of everything here, and is neither ruffled by the difficulties we encounter, nor enhanced when anything goes a little better. i must confess it rather provokes me, almost as much as the boys do. i have serious fears that one day she will leave us, like fritz, and take refuge in a convent. and yet i am sure i have not a fault to find with her. i suppose that is exactly what our grandmother and i feel so provoking. lately she has abandoned all her latin books for a german book entitled "theologia teutsch," or "theologia germanica," which fritz sent us before he left the erfurt convent on his pilgrimage to rome. this book seems to make eva very happy; but as to me, it appears to me more unintelligible than latin. although it is quite different from all the other religious books i ever read, it does not suit me any better. indeed, it seems as if i never should find the kind of religion that would suit me. it all seems so sublime and vague, and so far out of my reach;--only fit for people who have time to climb the heights; whilst my path seems to lie in the valleys, and among the streets, and amidst all kinds of little every-day secular duties and cares, which religion is too lofty to notice. i can only hope that some day at the end of my life god will graciously give me a little leisure to be religious and to prepare to meet him, or that eva's and fritz's prayers and merits will avail for me. wittemberg, _may_, . we are beginning to get settled into our new home, which is in the street near the university buildings. martin luther, or brother martin, has a great name here. they say his lectures are more popular than any one's. and he also frequently preaches in the city church. our grandmother is not pleased with the change. she calls the town a wretched mud village, and wonders what can have induced the electors of saxony to fix their residence and found a university in such a sandy desert as this. she supposes it is very much like the deserts of arabia. but christopher and i think differently. there are several very fine buildings here, beautiful churches, and the university, and the castle, and the augustinian monastery; and we have no doubt that in time the rest of the town will grow up to them. i have heard our grandmother say that babies with features too large for their faces often prove the handsomest people when they grow up to their features. and so, no doubt, it will be with wittemberg, which is at present certainly rather like an infant with the eyes and nose of a full-grown man. the mud walls and low cottages with thatched roofs look strangely out of keeping with the new buildings, the elector's palace and church at the western end, the city church in the centre, and the augustinian cloister and university at the eastern extremity, near the elster gate, close to which we live. it is true that there are no forests of pines, and wild hills, and lovely green valleys here, as around eisenach. but our grandmother need not call it a wilderness. the white sand-hills on the north are broken with little dells and copses; and on the south, not two hundred rods from the town, across a heath, flows the broad, rapid elbe. the great river is a delight to me. it leads one's thoughts back to its quiet sources among the mountains, and onwards to its home in the great sea. we had no great river at eisenach, which is an advantage on the side of wittemberg. and then the banks are fringed with low oaks and willows, which bend affectionately over the water, and are delightful to sit amongst on summer evenings. if i were not a little afraid of the people! the father does not like eva and me to go out alone. the students are rather wild. this year, however, they have been forbidden by the rector to carry arms, which is some comfort. but the town's people also are warlike and turbulent, and drink a great deal of beer. there are one hundred and seventy breweries in the place, although there are not more than three hundred and fifty houses. few of the inhabitants send their children to school, although there are five hundred students from all parts of germany at the university. some of the poorer people, who come from the country around to the markets, talk a language i cannot understand. our grandmother says they are wends, and that this town is the last place on the borders of the civilized world. beyond it, she declares, there are nothing but barbarians and tartars. indeed, she is not sure whether our neighbors themselves are christians. st. boniface, the great apostle of the saxons, did not extend his labours further than saxony; and she says the teutonic knights who conquered prussia and the regions beyond us, were only christian colonists living in the midst of half-heathen savages. to me it is rather a gloomy idea, to think that between wittemberg and the turks and tartars, or even the savages in the indies beyond, which christopher columbus has discovered, there are only a few half-civilized wends, living in those wretched hamlets which dot the sandy heaths around the town. but the father says it is a glorious idea, and that, if he were only a little younger, he would organize a land expedition, and traverse the country until he reached the spaniards and the portuguese, who sailed to the same point by sea. "only to think," he says, "that in a few weeks, or months at the utmost, we might reach cathay, el dorado, and even atlantis itself, where the houses are roofed and paved with gold, and return laden with treasures!" it seems to make him feel even his experiments with the retorts and crucibles in which he is always on the point of transmuting lead into silver, to be tame and slow processes. since we have been here, he has for the time abandoned his alchemical experiments, and sits for hours with a great map spread before him, calculating in the most accurate and elaborate manner how long it would take to reach the new spanish discoveries by way of wendish prussia. "for," he remarks, "if i am never able to carry out the scheme myself, it may one day immortalize one of my sons, and enrich and ennoble the whole of our family!" our journey from eisenach was one continual fête to the children. for my mother and the baby--now two years old--we made a couch in the wagon, of the family bedding. my grandmother sat erect in a nook among the furniture. little thekla was enthroned like a queen on a pile of pillows, where she sat hugging her own especial treasures,--her broken doll, the wooden horse christopher made for her, a precious store of cones and pebbles from the forest, and a very shaggy disreputable foundling dog which she has adopted, and can by no means be persuaded to part with. she calls the dog nix, and is sure that he is always asking her with his wistful eyes to teach him to speak, and give him a soul. with these, her household gods, preserved to her, she showed little feeling at parting from the rest of our eisenach world. the father was equally absorbed with his treasures, his folios, and models, and instruments, which he jealously guarded. eva had but one inseparable treasure, the volume of the "theologia germanica," which she has appropriated. the mother's especial thought was the baby. chriemhild was overwhelmed with the parting with pollux, who was left behind with cousin conrad cotta, and atlantis was so wild with delight at the thought of the new world and the new life, from which she was persuaded all the cares of the old were to be extracted for ever, that, had it not been for christopher and me, i must say the general interest of the family would have been rather in the background. for the time there was a truce between christopher and me concerning "reinecke fuchs," and our various differences. all his faculties--which have been so prolific for mischief--seemed suddenly turned into useful channels, like the mischievous elves of the farm and hearth, when they are capriciously bent on doing some poor human being a good turn. he scarcely tried my temper once during the whole journey. since we reached wittemberg, however, i cannot say as much. i feel anxious about the companions he has found among the students, and often, often i long that fritz's religion had led him to remain among us, at least until the boys had grown up. i had nerved myself beforehand for the leave-taking with the old friends and the old home, but when the moving actually began, there was no time to think of anything but packing in the last things which had been nearly forgotten, and arranging every one in their places. i had not even a moment for a last look at the old house, for at the instant we turned the corner, thekla and her treasures nearly came to an untimely end by the downfall of one of the father's machines; which so discouraged thekla, and excited our grandmother, nix and the baby, that it required considerable soothing to restore every one to equanimity; and, in the meantime, the corner of the street had been turned, and the dear old house was out of sight. i felt a pang, as if i had wronged it, the old home which had sheltered us so many years, and been the silent witness of so many joys, and cares, and sorrows! we had few adventures during the first day, except that thekla's peace was often broken by the difficulties in which nix's self-confident but not very courageous disposition frequently involved him with the cats and dogs in the villages, and their proprietors. the first evening in the forest was delightful. we encamped in a clearing. sticks were gathered for a fire, round which we arranged such bedding and furniture as we could unpack, and the children were wild with delight at thus combining serious household work with play, whilst christopher foddered and tethered the horses. after our meal we began to tell stories, but our grandmother positively forbade our mentioning the name of any of the forest sprites, or of any evil or questionable creature whatever. in the night i could not sleep. all was so strange and grand around us, and it did seem to me that there were wailings and sighings and distant moanings among the pines, not quite to be accounted for by the wind. i grew rather uneasy, and at length lifted my head to see if any one else was awake. opposite me sat eva, her face lifted to the stars, her hands clasped, and her lips moving as if in prayer. i felt her like a guardian angel, and instinctively drew nearer to her. "eva," i whispered at last, "do you not think there are rather strange and unaccountable noises around us? i wonder if it can be true that strange creatures haunt the forests?" "i think there are always spirits around us, cousin elsè," she replied, "good and evil spirits prowling around us, or ministering to us. i suppose in the solitude we feel them nearer, and perhaps they are." i was not at all reassured. "eva," i said, "i wish you would say some prayers; i feel afraid i may not think of the right ones. but are you really not at all afraid?" "why should i be?" she said softly; "god is nearer us always than all the spirits, good or evil,--nearer and greater than all. and he is the supreme goodness. i like the solitude, cousin elsè, because it seems to lift me above all the creatures to the one who is all and in all. and i like the wild forests," she continued, as if to herself, "because god is the only owner there, and i can feel more unreservedly, that we, and the creatures, and all we most call our own, are his, and only his. in the cities, the houses are called after the names of men, and each street and house is divided into little plots, of each of which some one says, 'it is mine.' but here all is visibly only god's, undivided, common to all. there is but one table, and that is his; the creatures live as free pensioners on his bounty." "is it then sin to call anything our own?" i asked. "my book says it was this selfishness that was the cause of adam's fall," she replied. "some say it was because adam ate the apple that he was lost, or fell; but my book says it was 'because of his claiming something for his own; and because of his saying, i, mine, me, and the like.'" "that is very difficult to understand." i said, "am i not to say, _my_ mother, _my_ father, _my_ fritz? ought i to love every one the same because all are equally god's? if property is sin, then why is stealing sin? eva, this religion is quite above and beyond me. it seems to me in this way it would be almost as wrong to give thanks for what we have, as to covet what we have not, because we ought not to think we have anything. it perplexes me extremely." i lay down again, resolved not to think any more about it. fritz and i proved once, a long time ago, how useless it is for me, at least, to attempt to get beyond the ten commandments. but trying to comprehend what eva said so bewildered me, that my thoughts soon wandered beyond my control altogether. i heard no more of eva or the winds, but fell into a sound slumber, and dreamt that eva and an angel were talking beside me all night in latin, which i felt i ought to understand, but of course could not. the next day we had not been long on our journey when, at a narrow part of the road, in a deep valley, a company of horsemen suddenly dashed down from a castle which towered on our right, and barred our further progress with serried lances. "do you belong to erfurt?" asked the leader, turning our horses' heads, and pushing christopher aside with the butt end of his gun. "no," said christopher, "to eisenach." "give way, men," shouted the knight to his followers; "we have no quarrel with eisenach. this is not what we are waiting for." the cavaliers made a passage for us, but a young knight who seemed to lead them rode on beside us for a time. "did you pass any merchandise on your road?" he asked of christopher, using the form of address he would have to a peasant. "we are not likely to pass anything," replied christopher, not very courteously, "laden as we are." "what is your lading?" asked the knight. "all our worldly goods," replied christopher, curtly. "what is your name, friend, and where are you bound?" "cotta," answered christopher. "my father is the director of the elector's printing press at the new university of wittemberg." "cotta!" rejoined the knight more respectfully, "a good burgher name;" and saying this he rode back to the wagon, and saluting our father, surveyed us all with a cool freedom, as if his notice honoured us, until his eye lighted on eva, who was sitting with her arm round thekla, soothing the frightened child, and helping her to arrange some violets christopher had gathered a few minutes before. his voice lowered when he saw her, and he said,-- "this is no burgher maiden, surely? may i ask your name, fair fraülein?" he said, doffing his hat and addressing eva. she made no reply, but continued arranging her flowers, without changing feature or colour, except her lip curled and quivered slightly. "the fraülein is absorbed with her bouquet; would that we were nearer our schloss, that i might offer her flowers more worthy of her handling." "are you addressing me?" said eva at length, raising her large eyes, and fixing them on him with her gravest expression; "i am no fraülein, i am a burgher maiden; but if i were a queen, any of god's flowers would be fair enough for me. and to a true knight," she added, "a peasant maiden is as sacred as a queen." no one ever could trifle with that earnest expression of eva's face. it was his turn to be abashed. his effrontery failed him altogether, and he murmured, "i have merited the rebuke. these flowers are too fair, at least for me. if you would bestow one on me, i would keep it sacredly as a gift of my mother's or as the relics of a saint." "you can gather them anywhere in the forest," said eva; but little thekla filled both her little hands with violets, and gave them to him. "you may have them all if you like," she said; "christopher can gather us plenty more." he took them carefully from the child's hand, and, bowing low, rejoined his men who were in front. he then returned, said a few words to christopher, and with his troop retired to some distance behind us, and followed us till we were close to erfurt, when he spurred on to my father's side, and saying rapidly, "you will be safe now, and need no further convoy," once more bowed respectfully to us, and rejoining his men, we soon lost the echo of their horse-hoofs, as they galloped back through the forest. "what did the knight say to you, christopher?" i asked, when we dismounted at erfurt that evening. "he said that part of the forest was dangerous at present, because of a feud between the knights and the burghers, and if we would allow him, he would be our escort until we came in sight of erfurt." "that, at least, was courteous of him," i said. "such courtesy as a burgher may expect of a knight," rejoined christopher, uncompromisingly; "to insult us without provocation, and then, as a favour, exempt us from their own illegal oppressions! but women are always fascinated with what men on horseback do." "no one is fascinated with any one," i replied. for it always provokes me exceedingly when that boy talks in that way about women. and our grandmother interposed,--"don't dispute, children; if your grandfather had not been unfortunate, you would have been of the knights' order yourselves, therefore it is not for you to run down the nobles." "i should never have been a knight," persisted christopher, "or a priest or a robber." but it was consolatory to my grandmother and me to consider how exalted our position would have been, had it not been for certain little unfortunate hindrances. our grandmother never admitted my father into the pedigree. at leipsic we left the children, while our grandmother, our mother, eva, and i went on foot to see aunt agnes at the convent of nimptschen, whither she had been transferred, some years before, from eisenach. we only saw her through the convent grating. but it seemed to me as if the voice, and manner, and face were entirely unchanged since that last interview when she terrified me as a child by asking me to become a sister, and abandon fritz. only the voice sounded to me even more like a muffled bell used only for funerals, especially when she said, in reference to fritz's entering the cloister, "praise to god, and the blessed virgin, and all the saints. at last, then, he has heard my unworthy prayers; one at least is saved!" a cold shudder passed over me at her words. had she then, indeed, all these years been praying that our happiness should be ruined and our home desolated? and had god heard her? was the fatal spell, which my mother feared was binding us, after all nothing else than aunt agnes's terrible prayers? her face looked as lifeless as ever, in the folds of white linen which bound it into a regular oval. her voice was metallic and lifeless; the touch of her hand was impassive and cold as marble when we took leave of her. my mother wept, and said, "dear agnes, perhaps we may never meet again on earth." "perhaps not," was the reply. "you will not forget us, sister?" said the mother. "i never forget you," was the reply, in the same deep, low, firm, irresponsive voice, which seemed as if it had never vibrated to anything more human than an organ playing gregorian chants. and the words echo in my heart to this instant, like a knell. she never forgets us. nightly in her vigils, daily in church and cell, she watches over us, and prays god not to let us be too happy. and god hears her, and grants her prayers. it is too clear he does! had she not been asking him to make fritz a monk? and is not fritz separated from us for ever? "how did you like the convent, eva?" i said to her that night when we were alone. "it seemed very still and peaceful," she said. "i think one could be very happy there. there would be so much time for prayer. one could perhaps more easily lose self there, and become nearer to god." "but what do you think of aunt agnes?" "i felt drawn to her. i think she has suffered." "she seems to be dead alike to joy or suffering," i said. "but people do not thus die without pain," said eva very gravely. our house at wittemberg is small. from the upper windows we look over the city walls, across the heath, to the elbe, which gleams and sparkles between its willows and dwarf oaks. behind the house is a plot of neglected ground, which christopher is busy at his leisure hours trenching and spading into an herb-garden. we are to have a few flowers on the borders of the straight walk which intersects it,--daffodils, pansies, roses, and sweet violets and gilliflowers, and wallflowers. at the end of the garden are two apple trees and a pear tree, which had shed their blossoms just before we arrived, in a carpet of pink and white petals. under the shade of these i carry my embroidery frame, when the house work is finished; and sometimes little thekla comes and prattles to me, and sometimes eva reads and sings to me. i cannot help regretting that lately eva is so absorbed with that "theologia germanica." i cannot understand it as well as i do the latin hymns when once she has translated them to me; for these speak of jesus the saviour, who left the heavenly home and sat weary by the way seeking for us; or of mary his dear mother; and although sometimes they tell of wrath and judgment, at all events i know what it means. but this other book is all to me one dazzling haze, without sun, or moon, or stars, or heaven, or earth, or seas, or anything distinct,--but all a blaze of indistinguishable glory, which is god; the one who is all--a kind of ocean of goodness, in which, in some mysterious way, we ought to be absorbed. but i am not an ocean, or any part of one; and i cannot love an ocean, because it is infinite, or unfathomable, or all-sufficient, or anything else. my mother's thought of god, as watching lest we should be too happy and love any one more than himself, remembering the mistakes and sins of youth, and delaying to punish them until just the moment when the punishment would be most keenly felt, is dreadful enough. but even that is not to me so bewildering and dreary as this all-absorbing being in eva's book. the god my mother dreads has indeed eyes of severest justice, and a frown of wrath against the sinner; but if once one could learn how to please him, the eyes might smile, the frown might pass. it is a countenance; and a heart which might meet ours! but when eva reads her book to me, i seem to look up into heaven and see nothing but heaven--light, space, infinity, and still on and on, infinity and light; a moral light, indeed--perfection, purity, goodness; but no eyes i can look into, no heart to meet mine--none whom i could speak to, or touch, or see! this evening we opened our window and looked out across the heath to the elbe. the town was quite hushed. the space of sky above us over the plain looked so large and deep. we seemed to see range after range of stars beyond each other in the clear air. the only sound was the distant, steady rush of the broad river, which gleamed here and there in the starlight. eva was looking up with her calm, bright look. "thine!" she murmured, "all this is thine; and we are thine, and thou art here! how much happier it is to be able to look up and feel there is no barrier of our own poor ownership between us and him, the possessor of heaven and earth! how much poorer we should be if we were lords of this land, like the elector, and if we said, 'all this is mine!' and so saw only i and mine in it all, instead of god and god's!" "yes," i said, "if we _ended_ in saying i and mine; but i should be very thankful if god gave us a little more out of his abundance, to use for our wants. and yet, how much better things are with us then they were!--the appointment of my father as director of the elector's printing establishment, instead of a precarious struggle for ourselves; and this embroidery of mine! it seems to me, eva, sometimes, we might be a happy family yet." "my book," she replied thoughtfully, "says we shall never be truly satisfied in god, or truly free, unless all things are one to us, and one is all, and something and nothing are alike. i suppose i am not quite truly free, cousin elsè, for i cannot like this place quite as much as the old eisenach home." i began to feel quite impatient, and i said,--"nor can i or any of us ever feel any home quite the same again, since fritz is gone. but as to feeling something and nothing are alike, i never can, and i will never try. one might as well be dead at once." "yes," said eva gravely; "i suppose we shall never comprehend it quite, or be quite satisfied and free, until we die." we talked no more that night; but i heard her singing one of her favourite hymns:[ ]-- in the fount of life perennial the parched heart its thirst would slake, and the soul, in flesh imprisoned, longs her prison-walls to break,-- exile, seeking, sighing, yearning in her fatherland to wake. when with cares oppressed and sorrows, only groans her grief can tell, then she contemplates the glory which she lost when first she fell: memory of the vanished good the present evil can but swell. who can utter what the pleasures and the peace unbroken are where arise the pearly mansions, shedding silvery light afar-- festive seats and golden roofs, which glitter like the evening star? wholly of fair stones most precious are those radiant structures made; with pure gold, like glass transparent, are those shining streets inlaid; nothing that defiles can enter, nothing that can soil or fade. stormy winter, burning summer, rage within those regions never; but perpetual bloom of roses, and unfading spring for ever: lilies gleam, the crocus glows, and dropping balms their scents deliver; honey pure, and greenest pastures,--this the land of promise is liquid odours soft distilling, perfumes breathing on the breeze; fruits immortal cluster always on the leafy, fadeless trees. there no moon shines chill and changing, there no stars with twinkling ray-- for the lamb of that blest city is at once the sun and day; night and time are known no longer,--day shall never fade away. there the saints, like suns, are radiant,--like the sun at dawn they glow; crownèd victors after conflict, all their joys together flow; and, secure, they count the battles where they fought the prostrate foe. every stain of flesh is cleansèd, every strife is left behind; spiritual are their bodies,--perfect unity of mind; dwelling in deep peace for ever, no offense or grief they find. putting off their mortal vesture, in their source their souls they steep,-- truth by actual vision learning, on its form their gaze they keep,-- drinking from the living fountain draughts of living waters deep. time, with all its alternations, enters not those hosts among,-- glorious, wakeful, blest, no shade of chance or change o'er them is flung; sickness cannot touch the deathless, nor old age the ever young. there their being is eternal,--things that cease have ceased to be. all corruption there has perished,--there they flourish strong and free; thus mortality is swallowed up of life eternally. nought from them is hidden,--knowing him to whom all things are known all the spirit's deep recesses, sinless, to each other shown,-- unity of will and purpose, heart and mind for ever one. diverse as their varied labours the rewards to each that fall; but love, what she loves in others evermore her own doth call: thus the several joy of each becomes the common joy of all. where the body is, there ever are the eagles gathered; for the saints and for the angels one most blessed feast is spread,-- citizens of either country living on the self-same bread. ever filled and ever seeking, what they have they still desire; hunger there shall fret them never, nor satiety shall tire,-- still enjoying whilst aspiring, in their joy they still aspire. there the new song, new forever, those melodious voices sing,-- ceaseless streams of fullest music through those blessed regions ring! crownèd victors ever bringing praises worthy of the king! blessed who the king of heaven in his beauty thus behold, and, beneath his throne rejoicing, see the universe unfold,-- sun and moon, and stars and planets, radiant in his light unrolled. christ, the palm of faithful victors! of that city make me free; when my warfare shall be ended, to its mansions lead thou me; grant me, with its happy inmates, sharer of thy gifts to be! let thy soldier, still contending, still be with thy strength supplied; thou wilt not deny the quiet when the arms are laid aside; make me meet with thee for ever in that country to abide! [footnote : ad perennis vitæ fontem mens sitivit arida, claustra carnis præstò frangi clausa quærit anima, gliscit, ambit, electatur, exul frui patriâ. &c. &c. &c. (the translation only is given above.)] _passion week._ wittemberg has been very full this week. there have been great mystery-plays in the city church; and in the electoral church (_schloss kirche_) all the relics have been solemnly exhibited. crowds of pilgrims have come from all the neighbouring villages, wendish and saxon. it has been very unpleasant to go about the streets, so much beer has been consumed; and the students and peasants have had frequent encounters. it is certainly a comfort that there are large indulgences to be obtained by visiting the relics, for the pilgrims seem to need a great deal of indulgence. the sacred mystery-plays were very magnificent. the judas was wonderfully hateful,--hunchbacked, and dressed like a rich jewish miser; and the devils were dreadful enough to terrify the children for a year. little thekla was dressed in white, with gauze wings, and made a lovely angel--and enjoyed it very much. they wanted eva to represent one of the holy women at the cross, but she would not. indeed she nearly wept at the thought, and did not seem to like the whole ceremony at all. "it all really happened!" she said; "they really crucified him! and he is risen, and living in heaven; and i cannot bear to see it performed, like a fable." the second day there was certainly more jesting and satire than i liked. christopher said it reminded him of "reinecke fuchs." in the middle of the second day we missed eva, and when in a few hours i came back to the house to seek her, i found her kneeling by our bed-side, sobbing as if her heart would break. i drew her towards me, but i could not discover that anything at all was the matter, except that the young knight who had stopped us in the forest had bowed very respectfully to her, and had shown her a few dried violets, which he said he should always keep in remembrance of her and her words. it did not seem to me so unpardonable an offence, and i said so. "he had no right to keep anything for my sake!" she sobbed. "no one will ever have any right to keep anything for my sake; and if fritz had been here, he would never have allowed it." "little eva," i said, "what has become of your 'theologia teutsch?' your book says you are to take all things meekly, and be indifferent, i suppose, alike to admiration and reproach." "cousin elsè," said eva very gravely, rising and standing erect before me with clasped hands, "i have not learned the 'theologia' through well yet, but i mean to try. the world seems to me very evil, and very sad. and there seems no place in it for an orphan girl like me. there is no rest except in being a wife or a nun. a wife i shall never be, and therefore, dear, dear elsè," she continued, kneeling down again, and throwing her arms around me, "i have just decided--i will go to the convent where aunt agnes is, and be a nun." i did not attempt to remonstrate; but the next day i told the mother, who said gravely, "she will be happier there, poor child! we must let her go." but she became pale as death, her lip quivered, and she added,--"yes, god must have the choicest of all. it is in vain indeed to fight against him!" then, fearing she might have wounded me, she kissed me and said,--"since fritz left, she has grown so very dear! but how can i murmur when my loving elsè is spared to us?" "mother," i said, "do you think aunt agnes has been praying again for this?" "probably!" she replied, with a startled look. "she did look very earnestly at eva." "then, mother," i replied, "i shall write to aunt agnes at once, to tell her that she is not to make any such prayers for you or for me. for, as to me, it is entirely useless. and if you were to imitate st. elizabeth, and leave us, it would break all our hearts, and the family would go to ruin altogether." "what are you thinking of, elsè?" replied my mother meekly. "it is too late indeed for me to think of being a saint. i can never hope for anything beyond this, that god in his great mercy may one day pardon me my sins, and receive me as the lowest of his creatures, for the sake of his dear son who died upon the cross. what could you mean by my imitating st. elizabeth?" i felt reassured, and did not pursue the subject, fearing it might suggest what i dreaded to my mother. wittemberg, _june_ . and so eva and fritz are gone, the two religious ones of the family. they are gone into their separate convents, to be made saints, and have left us all to struggle in the world without them,--with all that helped us to be less earthly taken from us. it seems to me as if a lovely picture of the holy mother had been removed from the dwelling-room since eva has gone, and instead we had nothing left but family portraits, and paintings of common earthly things; or as if a window opening towards the stars had been covered by a low ceiling. she was always like a little bit of heaven among us. i miss her in our little room at night. her prayers seemed to hallow it. i miss her sweet, holy songs at my embroidery; and now i have nothing to turn my thoughts from the arrangements for to-morrow, and the troubles of yesterday, and the perplexities of to-day. i had no idea how i must have been leaning on her. she always seemed so child-like, and so above my petty cares--and in practical things i certainly understood much more; and yet, in some way, whenever i talked anything over with her, it always seemed to take the burden away,--to change cares into duties, and clear my thoughts wonderfully,--just by lightening my heart. it was not that she suggested what to do; but she made me feel things were working for good, not for harm--that god in some way ordered them--and then the right thoughts seemed to come to me naturally. our mother, i am afraid, grieves as much as she did for fritz; but she tries to hide it, lest we should feel her ungrateful for the love of her children. i have a terrible dread sometimes that aunt agnes will get her prayers answered about our precious mother also,--if not in one way, in another. she looks so pale and spiritless. christopher has just returned from taking eva to the convent. he says she shed many tears when he left her; which is a comfort. i could not bear to think that something and nothing were alike to her yet! he told me also one thing, which has made me rather anxious. on the journey, eva begged him to take care of our father's sight, which, she said, she thought had been failing a little lately. and just before they separated she brought him a little jar of distilled eye-water, which the nuns were skillful in making, and sent it to our father with sister ave's love. certainly my father has read less lately; and now i think of it, he has asked me once or twice to find things for him, and to help him about his models, in a way he never used to do. it is strange that eva, with those deep, earnest, quiet eyes, which seemed to look about so little, always saw before any of us what every one wanted. darling child! she will remember us, then, and our little cares. and she will have some eye-water to make, which will be much better for her than reading all day in that melancholy "theologia teutsch." but are we to call our eva, ave? she gave these lines of the hymn in her own writing to christopher, to bring to me. she often used to sing it, and has explained the words to me:-- "ave, maris stella dei mater alma atque semper virgo felix coeli porta. _sumens illud ave_ gabrielis ore funda nos in pace _mutans nomen evoe_." it is not an uncommon name, i know, with nuns. well, dearly as i loved the old name, i cannot complain of the change. sister ave will be as dear to me as cousin eva, only a little bit further off, and nearer heaven. her living so near heaven, while she was with us, never seemed to make her further off, but nearer to us all. now, however, it cannot, of course, be the same. our grandmother remains steadfast to the baptismal name. "receiving that ave from the lips of gabriel, the blessed mother transformed the name of our mother eva! and now our child eva is on her way to become saint ave,--god's angel ave in heaven!" _june_ . the young knight we met in the forest has called at our house to-day. i could scarcely command my voice at first to tell him where our eva is, because i cannot help partly blaming him for her leaving us at last. "at nimptschen!" he said; "then she was noble, after all. none but maidens of noble houses are admitted there." "yes," i said, "our mother's family is noble." "she was too heavenly for this world!" he murmured. "her face, and something in her words and tones, have haunted me like a holy vision, or a church hymn, ever since i saw her." i could not feel as indignant with the young knight as eva did. and he seemed so interested in our father's models, that we could not refuse him permission to come and see us again. yes, our eva was, i suppose, as he says, too religious and too heavenly for this world. only, as so many of us have, after all, to live in the world, unless the world is to come to an end altogether, it would be a great blessing if god had made a religion for us poor, secular people, as well as one for the monks and nuns. x. fritz's story. rome, augustinian convent. holy as this city necessarily must be, consecrated by relics of the church's most holy dead, consecrated by the presence of her living head, i scarcely think religion is as deep in the hearts of these italians as of our poor germans in the cold north. but i may mistake; feeling of all kinds manifests itself in such different ways with different characters. certainly the churches are thronged on all great occasions, and the festas are brilliant. but the people seem rather to regard them as holidays and dramatic entertainments, than as the solemn and sacred festivals we consider them in saxony. this morning, for instance, i heard two women criticizing a procession in words such as these, as far as the little italian i have picked up, enabled me to understand them:-- "ah, nina mia, the angels are nothing to-day; you should have seen our lucia last year! every one said she was heavenly. if the priests do not arrange it better, people will scarcely care to attend. besides, the music was execrable." "ah, the nuns of the cistercian convent understand how to manage a ceremony. they have ideas! did you see their bambino last christmas? such lace! and the cradle of tortoise-shell, fit for an emperor, as it should be! and then their robes for the madonna on her fêtes! cloth of gold embroidered with pearls and brilliants worth a treasury!" "yes," replied the other, lowering her voice, "i have been told the history of those robes. a certain lady who was powerful at the late holy father's court, is said to have presented the dress in which she appeared on some state occasion to the nuns, just as she wore it." "did she become a penitent, then?" "a penitent? i do not know; such an act of penitence would purchase indulgences and masses to last at least for some time." brother martin and i do not so much affect these gorgeous processions. these italians, with their glorious skies and the rich colouring of their beautiful land require more splendour in their religion than our german eyes can easily gaze on undazzled. it rather perplexed us to see the magnificent caparisons of the horses of the cardinals; and more especially to behold the holy father sitting on a fair palfrey, bearing the sacred host. in germany, the loftiest earthly dignity prostrates itself low before that ineffable presence. but my mind becomes confused. heaven forbid that i should call the vicar of christ an _earthly_ dignitary! is he not the representative and oracle of god on earth? for this reason,--no doubt in painful contradiction to the reverent awe natural to every christian before the holy sacrament,--the holy father submits to sitting enthroned in the church, and receiving the body of our creator through a golden tube presented to him by a kneeling cardinal. it must be very difficult for him to separate between the office and the person. it is difficult enough for us. but for the human spirit not yet made perfect to receive these religious honours must be overwhelming. doubtless, at night, when the holy father humbles himself in solitude before god, his self-abasement is as much deeper than that of ordinary christians as his exaltation is greater. i must confess that it is an inexpressible relief to me to retire to the solitude of my cell at night, and pray to him of whom brother martin and i spoke in the black forest; to whom the homage of the universe is no burden, because it is not mere prostration before an office, but adoration of a person. "holy, holy, holy, lord god almighty: heaven and earth are full of thy glory." holiness--to which almightiness is but an attribute, holy one, who hast loved and given thine holy one for a sinful world, _miserere nobis_! rome, _july_. we have diligently visited all the holy relics, and offered prayers at every altar at which especial indulgences are procured, for ourselves and others. brother martin once said he could almost wish his father and mother (whom he dearly loves) were dead, that he might avail himself of the privileges of this holy city to deliver their souls from purgatory. he says masses whenever he can. but the italian priests are often impatient with him because he recites the office so slowly. i heard one of them say, contemptuously, he had accomplished thirty masses while brother martin only finished one. and more than once they hurry him forward, saying "passa! passa!" there is a strange disappointment in these ceremonies to me, and, i think, often to him. i seem to expect so much more,--not more pomp, of that there is abundance; but when the ceremony itself begins, to which all the pomp of music, and processions of cavaliers, and richly-robed priests, and costly shrines, are mere preliminary accessories, it seems often so poor! the kernel inside all this gorgeous shell seems to the eye of sense like a little poor withered dust. to the eye of _sense_! yes, i forget. these are the splendours of _faith_, which faith only can behold. to-day we gazed on the veronica,--the holy impression left by our saviour's face on the cloth st. veronica presented to him to wipe his brow, bowed under the weight of the cross. we had looked forward to this sight for days; for seven thousand years of indulgence from penance are attached to it. but when the moment came brother martin and i could see nothing but a black board hung with a cloth, before which another white cloth was held. in a few minutes this was withdrawn, and the great moment was over, the glimpse of the sacred thing on which hung the fate of seven thousand years! for some time brother martin and i did not speak of it. i feared there had been some imperfection in my looking, which might affect the seven thousand years; but observing his countenance rather downcast, i told my difficulty, and found that he also had seen nothing but a white cloth. the skulls of st. peter and st. paul perplexed us still more, because they had so much the appearance of being carved in wood. but in the crowd we could not approach very close; and doubtless satan uses devices to blind the eyes even of the faithful. one relic excited my amazement much--the halter with which judas hanged himself! it could scarcely be termed a _holy_ relic. i wonder who preserved it, when so many other precious things are lost. scarcely the apostles; perhaps the scribes, out of malice. the romans, i observe, seem to care little for what to us is the kernel and marrow of these ceremonies--the exhibition of the holy relics. they seem more occupied in comparing the pomp of one year, or of one church, with another. we must not, i suppose, measure the good things done us by our own thoughts and feelings, but simply accept it on the testimony of the church. otherwise i might be tempted to imagine that the relics of pagan rome do my spirit more good than gazing on the sacred ashes or bones of martyrs or apostles. when i walk over the heaps of shapeless ruin, so many feet beneath which lies buried the grandeur of the old imperial city; or when i wander among the broken arches of the gigantic coliseum, where the martyrs fought with wild beasts,--great thoughts seem to grow naturally in my mind, and i feel how great truth is, and how little empires are. i see an empire solid as this coliseum crumble into ruins as undistinguishable as the dust of those streets, before the word of that once despised jew of tarsus, "in bodily presence weak," who was beheaded here. or, again, in the ancient pantheon, when the music of christian chants rises among the shadowy forms of the old vanquished gods painted on the walls, and the light streams down, not from painted windows in the walls, but from the glowing heavens above, every note of the service echoes like a peal of triumph, and fills my heart with thankfulness. but my happiest hours here are spent in the church of my patron, st. sebastian, without the walls, built over the ancient catacombs. countless martyrs, they say, rest in peace in these ancient sepulchres. they have not been opened for centuries; but they are believed to wind in subterranean passages far beneath the ancient city. in those dark depths the ancient church took refuge from persecution: there she laid her martyrs; and there, over their tombs, she chanted hymns of triumph, and held communion with him for whom they died. in that church i spend hours. i have no wish to descend into those sacred sepulchres, and pry among the graves the resurrection trump will open soon enough. i like to think of the holy dead, lying undisturbed and quiet there; of their spirits in paradise; of their faith triumphant in the city which massacred them. no doubt they also had their perplexities, and wondered why the wicked triumph, and sighed to god, "how long, o lord, how long?" and yet i cannot help wishing i had lived and died among them, and had not been born in times when we see satan appear, not in his genuine hideousness, but as an angel of light. for of the wickedness that prevails in this christian rome, alas, who can speak! of the shameless sin, the violence, the pride, the mockery of sacred things! in the coliseum, in the pantheon, in the church of st. sebastian, i feel an atom--but an atom in a solid, god-governed world, where truth is mightiest;--insignificant in myself as the little mosses which flutter on these ancient stones; but yet a little moss on a great rock which cannot be shaken--the rock of god's providence and love. in the busy city, i feel tossed hither and thither on a sea which seems to rage and heave at its own wild will, without aim or meaning--a sea of human passion. among the ruins, i commune with the spirits of our great and holy dead, who live unto god. at the exhibition of the sacred relics, my heart is drawn down to the mere perishable dust, decorated with the miserable pomps of the little men of the day. and then i return to the convent and reproach myself for censoriousness, and unbelief, and pride, and try to remember that the benefits of these ceremonies and exhibitions are only to be understood by faith, and are not to be judged by inward feeling, or even by their moral results. the church, the holy father, solemnly declare that pardons and blessings incalculable, to ourselves and others, flow from so many paternosters and aves recited at certain altars, or from seeing the veronica or the other relics. i have performed the acts, and i must at my peril believe in their efficacy. but brother martin and i are often sorely discouraged at the wickedness we see and hear around us. a few days since he was at a feast with several prelates and great men of the church, and the fashion among them seemed to be to jest at all that is most sacred. some avowed their disbelief in one portion of the faith, and some in others; but all in a light and laughing way, as if it mattered little to any of them. one present related how they sometimes substituted the words _panis es, et panis manebis_ in the mass, instead of the words of consecration, and then amused themselves with watching the people adore what was, after all, no consecrated host, but a mere piece of bread. the romans themselves we have heard declare, that if there be a hell, rome is built over it. they have a couplet,-- "vivere qui sancte vultis, discedite roma: omnia hic esse licent, non licet esse probum."[ ] [footnote : "ye who would live holily, depart from rome: all things are allowed here, except to be upright."] o rome! in sacredness as jerusalem, in wickedness as babylon, how bitter is the conflict that breaks forth in the heart at seeing holy places and holy character thus disjoined! how overwhelming the doubts that rush back on the spirit again and again, as to the very existence of holiness or truth in the universe, when we behold the deeds of satan prevailing in the very metropolis of the kingdom of god! rome, _august_. mechanically, we continue to go through every detail of the prescribed round of devotions, believing against experience, and hoping against hope. to-day brother martin went to accomplish the ascent of the santa scala--the holy staircase--which once, they say, formed part of pilate's house. i had crept up the sacred steps before, and stood watching him as, on his knees, he slowly mounted step after step of the hard stone, worn into hollows, by the knees of penitents and pilgrims. an indulgence for a thousand years--indulgence from penance--is attached to this act of devotion. patiently he crept half way up the staircase, when, to my amazement, he suddenly stood erect, lifted his face heavenward, and, in another moment, turned and walked slowly down again. he seemed absorbed in thought, when he rejoined me; and it was not until some time afterwards that he told the meaning of this sudden abandonment of his purpose. he said that, as he was toiling up, a voice, as if from heaven, seemed to whisper to him the old, well-known words, which had been his battle-cry in so many a victorious combat,--"_the just shall live by faith._" he seemed awakened, as if from a nightmare, and restored to himself. he dared not creep up another step; but, rising from his knees, he stood upright, like a man suddenly loosed from bonds and fetters, and, with the firm step of a freeman, he descended the staircase and walked from the place. _august_, . to-night there has been an assassination. a corpse was found near our convent gates, pierced with many wounds. but no one seems to think much of it. such things are constantly occurring, they say; and the only interest seems to be as to the nature of the quarrel which led to it. "a prelate is mixed up with it," the monks whisper: "one of the late pope's family. it will not be investigated." but these crimes of passion seem to me comprehensible and excusable, compared with the spirit of levity and mockery which pervades all classes. in such acts of revenge you see human nature in ruins; yet in the ruins you can trace something of the ancient dignity. but in this jesting, scornful spirit, which mocks at sacredness in the service of god, at virtue in woman, and at truth and honour in men, all traces of god's image seem crushed and trodden into shapeless, incoherent dust. from such thoughts i often take refuge in the campagna, and feel a refreshment in its desolate spaces, its solitary wastes, its traces of material ruin. the ruins of empires and of imperial edifices do not depress me. the immortality of the race and of the soul rises grandly in contrast. in the campagna we see the ruins of imperial rome; but in rome we see the ruin of our race and nature. and what shall console us for that, when the presence of all that christians most venerate is powerless to arrest it? were it not for some memories of a home at eisenach, on which i dare not dwell too much, it seems at times as if the very thought of purity and truth would fade from my heart. rome, _august_. brother martin, during the intervals of the business of his order, which is slowly winding its way among the intricacies of the roman courts, is turning his attention to the study of hebrew, under the rabbi elias levita. i study also with the rabbi, and have had the great benefit, moreover, of hearing lectures from the byzantine greek professor, argyropylos. two altogether new worlds seem to open to me through these men,--one in the far distances of time, and the other in those of space. the rabbi, one of the race which is a by-word and a scorn among us from boyhood, to my surprise seems to glory in his nation and his pedigree, with a pride which looks down on the antiquity of our noblest lineages as mushrooms of a day. i had no conception that underneath the misery and the obsequious demeanour of the jews such lofty feelings existed. and, yet, what wonder is it! before rome was built, jerusalem was a sacred and royal city; and now that the empire and the people of rome have passed for centuries, this nation, fallen before their prime, still exists to witness their fall. i went once to the door of their synagogue, in the ghetto. there were no shrines in it, no altars, no visible symbols of sacred things, except the roll of the law, which was reverently taken out of a sacred treasury and read aloud. yet there seemed something sublime in this symbolizing of the presence of god only by a voice reading the words which, ages ago, he spoke to their prophets in the holy land. "why have you no altar?" i asked once of one of the rabbis. "our altar can only be raised when our temple is built," was the reply. "our temple can only rise in the city and on the hill of our god. but," he continued, in a low, bitter tone, "when our altar and temple are restored, it will not be to offer incense to the painted image of a hebrew maiden." i have thought of the words often since. but were they not blasphemy? i must not dare recall them. but those greeks! they are christians, and yet not of our communion. as argyropylos speaks, i understand for the first time that a church exists in the east, as ancient as the church of western europe, and as extensive, which acknowledges the holy trinity and the creeds, but owns no allegiance to the holy father the pope. the world is much larger and older than elsè or i thought at eisenach. may not god's kingdom be much larger than some think at rome? in the presence of monuments which date back to days before christianity, and of men who speak the language of moses, and, with slight variations, the language of homer, our germany seems in its infancy indeed. would to god it were in its infancy, and that a glorious youth and prime may succeed, when these old, decrepit nations are worn out and gone! yet heaven forbid that i should call rome decrepit--rome on whose brow rests, not the perishable crown of earthly dominion, but the tiara of the kingdom of god. _september._ the mission which brought brother martin hither is nearly accomplished. we shall soon--we may at a day's notice--leave rome and return to germany. and what have we gained by our pilgrimage? a store of indulgences beyond calculation. and knowledge; eyes opened to see good and evil. ennobling knowledge! glimpses into rich worlds of human life and thought, which humble the heart in expanding the mind. bitter knowledge! illusions dispelled, aspirations crushed. we have learned that the heart of christendom is a moral plague-spot; that spiritual privileges and moral goodness have no kind of connection, because where the former are at the highest perfection, the latter is at the lowest point of degradation. we have learned that on earth there is no place to which the heart can turn as a sanctuary, if by a sanctuary we mean not merely a refuge from the punishment of sin, but a place in which to grow holy. in one sense, rome may, indeed, be called the sanctuary of the world! it seems as if half the criminals in the world had found a refuge here. when i think of rome in future as a city of the living, i shall think of assassination, treachery, avarice, a spirit of universal mockery, which seems only the foam over an abyss of universal despair; mockery of all virtue, based on disbelief in all truth. it is only as a city of the dead that my heart will revert to rome as a holy place. she has indeed built, and built beautifully, the sepulchres of the prophets. those hidden catacombs, where the holy dead rest, far under the streets of the city,--too far for traffickers in sacred bones to disturb them,--among these the imagination can rest, like those beatified ones, in peace. the spiritual life of rome seems to be among her dead. among the living all seems spiritual corruption and death. may god and the saints have mercy on me if i say what is sinful. does not the scum necessarily rise to the surface? do not acts of violence and words of mockery necessarily make more noise in the world than prayers? how do i know how many humble hearts there are in those countless convents there, that secretly offer acceptable incense to god, and keep the perpetual lamp of devotion burning in the sight of god? how do i know what deeper and better thoughts lie hidden under that veil of levity? only i often feel that if god had not made me a believer through his word, by the voice of brother martin in the black forest, rome might too easily have made me an infidel. and it is certainly true, that to be a christian at rome as well as elsewhere, (indeed, more than elsewhere) one must breast the tide, and must walk by faith, and not by sight. but we have performed the pilgrimage. we have conscientiously visited all the shrines; we have recited as many as possible of the privileged acts of devotion, paters and aves, at the privileged shrines. great benefits _must_ result to us from these things. but benefits of what kind? moral? how can that be? when shall i efface from my memory the polluting words and works i have seen and heard at rome? spiritual? scarcely; if by spiritual we are to understand a devout mind, joy in god, and nearness to him. when, since that night in the black forest, have i found prayer so difficult, doubts so overwhelming, the thoughts of god and heaven so dim, as at rome? the benefits, then, that we have received, must be ecclesiastical--those that the church promises and dispenses. and what are these ecclesiastical benefits? pardon? but is it not written that god gives this freely to those who believe on his son? peace? but is not that the legacy of the saviour to all who love him? what then? indulgences. indulgences from what? from the temporal consequences of sin? too obviously not these. do the ecclesiastical indulgences save men from disease, and sorrow, and death? is it, then, from the eternal consequences of sin? did not the lamb of god, dying for us on the cross, bear our sins there, and blot them out? what then remains, which the indulgences can deliver from? penance and purgatory. what then are penance and purgatory? has penance in itself no curative effect, that we can be healed of our sins by escaping as well as by performing it? have purgatorial fires no purifying powers, that we can be purified as much by repeating a few words of devotion at certain altars as by centuries of agony in the flames? all these questions rise before me from time to time, and i find no reply. if i mention them to my confessor, he says,-- "these are temptations of the devil. you must not listen to them. they are vain and presumptuous questions. there are no keys on earth to open these doors." are there any keys on earth to _lock_ them again, when once they have been opened? "you germans," others of the italian priests say, "take everything with such desperate seriousness. it is probably owing to your long winters and the heaviness of your northern climate, which must, no doubt, be very depressing to the spirits." holy mary! and these italians, if life is so light a matter to them, will not they also have one day to take death "with desperate seriousness," and judgment and eternity, although there will be no long winters, i suppose, and no heavy northern climate, to depress the spirits in that other world. we are going back to germany at last. strangely has the world enlarged to me since we came here. we are accredited pilgrims; we have performed every prescribed duty, and availed ourselves of every proffered privilege. and yet it is not because of the regret of quitting the holy city that our hearts are full of the gravest melancholy as we turn away from rome. when i compare the recollections of this rome with those of a home at eisenach, i am tempted in my heart to feel as if germany, and not rome, were the holy place, and our pilgrimage were beginning, instead of ending, as we turn our faces northward! xi. eva's story. cistercian convent, nimptschen, . life cannot, at the utmost, last very long, although at seventeen we may be tempted to think the way between us and heaven interminable. for the convent is certainly not heaven; i never expected it would be. it is not nearly so much like heaven, i think, as aunt cotta's home; because love seems to me to be the essential joy of heaven, and there is more love in that home than here. i am not at all disappointed. i did not expect a haven of rest, but only a sphere where i might serve god better, and, at all events, not be a burden on dear aunt cotta. for i feel sure uncle cotta will become blind; and they have so much difficulty to struggle on, as it is. and the world is full of dangers for a young orphan girl like me; and i am afraid they might want me to marry some one, which i never could. i have no doubt god will give me some work to do for him here, and that is all the happiness i look for. not that i think there are not other kinds of happiness in the world which are not wrong; but they are not for me. i shall never think it was wrong to love them all at eisenach as much as i did, and do, whatever the confessor may say. i shall be better all my life, and all the life beyond, i believe, for the love god gave them for me, and me for them, and for having known cousin fritz. i wish very much he would write to me; and sometimes i think i will write to him. i feel sure it would do us both good. he always said it did him good to talk and read the dear old latin hymns with me; and i know they never seemed more real and true than when i sang them to him. but the father confessor says it would be exceedingly perilous for our souls to hold such a correspondence; and he asked me if i did not think more of my cousin than of the hymns when i sang them to him, which, he says, would have been a great sin. i am sure i cannot tell exactly how the thoughts were balanced, or from what source each drop or pleasure flowed. it was all blended together. it was joy to sing the hymns, and it was joy for fritz to like to hear them; and where one joy overflowed into the other i cannot tell. i believe god gave me both; and i do not see that i need care to divide one from the other. who cares, when the elbe is flowing past its willows and oaks at wittemberg, which part of its waters was dissolved by the sun from the pure snows on the mountains, and which came trickling from some little humble spring on the sandy plains? both springs and snows came originally from the clouds above; and both, as they flow blended on together, make the grass spring and the leaf-buds swell, and all the world rejoice. the heart with which we love each other and with which we love god, is it not the same? only god is all good, and we are all his, therefore we should love him best. i think i do, or i should be more desolate here than i am, away from all but him. that is what i understand by my "theologia germanica," which elsè does not like. i begin with my father's legacy--"god so loved the world, that he gave his son;" and then i think of the crucifix, and of the love of him who died for us; and, in the light of these, i love to read in my book of him who is the supreme goodness, whose will is our rest, and who is himself the joy of all our joys, and our joy when we have no other joy. the things i do not comprehend in the book, i leave, like so many other things. i am but a poor girl of seventeen, and how can i expect to understand everything? only i never let the things i do not understand perplex me about those i do. therefore, when my confessor told me to examine my heart, and see if there were not wrong and idolatrous thoughts mixed up with my love for them all at eisenach, i said at once, looking up at him-- "yes, father, i did not love them half enough, for all their love to me." i think he must have been satisfied; for although he looked perplexed, he did not ask me any more questions. i feel very sorry for many of the nuns, especially for the old nuns. they seem to me like children, and yet not child-like. the merest trifles appear to excite or trouble them. they speak of the convent as if it were the world, and of the world as if it were hell. it is a childhood with no hope, no youth and womanhood before it. it reminds me of the stunted oaks we passed on düben heath, between wittemberg and leipsic, which will never be full-grown, and yet are not saplings. then there is one, sister beatrice, whom the nuns seem to think very inferior to themselves, because they say she was forced into the convent by her relatives, to prevent her marrying some one they did not like, and could never be induced to take the vows until her lover died,--which, they say, is hardly worthy of the name of a vocation at all. she does not seem to think so either, but moves about in a subdued, broken-spirited way, as if she felt herself a creature belonging neither to the church nor to the world. the other evening she had been on an errand for the prioress through the snow, and returned blue with cold. she had made some mistake in the message, and was ordered at once, with contemptuous words, to her cell, to finish a penance by reciting certain prayers. i could not help following her. when i found her, she was sitting on a pallet shivering, with the prayer-book before her. i crept into the cell, and, sitting down beside her, began to chafe her poor icy hands. at first she tried to withdraw them, murmuring that she had a penance to perform; and then her eyes wandered from the book to mine. she gazed wonderingly at me for some moments, and then she burst into tears, and said,-- "oh, do not do that! it makes me think of the old nursery at home. and my mother is dead; all are dead, and i cannot die." she let me put my arms round her, however; and, in faint, broken words, the whole history came out. "i am not here from choice," she said. "i should never have been here if my mother had not died; and i should never have taken the vows if _he_ had not died, whatever they had done to me; for we were betrothed, and we had vowed before god we would be true to each other till death. and why is not one vow as good as another? when they told me he was dead, i took the vows,--or, at least, i let them put the veil on me, and said the words as i was told, after the priest; for i did not care what i did. and so i am a nun. i have no wish now to be anything else. but it will do me no good to be a nun, for i loved eberhard first, and i loved him best; and now that he is dead, i love no one, and have no hope in heaven or earth. i try, indeed, not to think of him, because they say that is sin; but i cannot think of happiness without him, if i try for ever." i said, "i do not think it is wrong for you to think of him." her face brightened for an instant, and then she shook her head, and said,-- "ah, you are a child; you are an angel. you do not know." and then she began to weep again, but more quietly. "i wish you had seen him; then you would understand better. it was not wrong for me to love him once; and he was so different from every one else--so true and gentle, and so brave." i listened while she continued to speak of him, and, at last, looking wistfully at me, she said, in a low, timid voice, "i cannot help trusting you." and she drew from inside a fold of her robe a little piece of yellow paper, with a few words written on it, in pale, faded ink, and a lock of brown hair. "do you think it is very wrong?" she asked. "i have never told the confessor, because i am not quite sure if it is a sin to keep it; and i am quite sure the sisters would take it from me if they knew. do you think it is wrong?" the words were very simple--expressions of unchangeable affection, and a prayer that god would bless her and keep them for each other until better times. i could not speak, i felt so sorry; and she murmured, nervously taking her poor treasures from my hands, "you do not think it right. but you will not tell? perhaps one day i shall be better, and be able to give them up; but not yet. i have nothing else." then i tried to tell her that she _had_ something else;--that god loved her and had pity on her, and that perhaps he was only answering the prayer of her betrothed, and guarding them in his blessed keeping until they should meet in better times. at length she seemed to take comfort; and i knelt down with her, and we said together the prayers she had been commanded to recite. when i rose, she said thoughtfully, "you seem to pray as if some one in heaven really listened and cared." "yes," i said; "god does listen and care." "even to me?" she asked; "even for me? will he not despise me, like the holy sisterhood?" "he scorns no one; and they say the lowest are nearest him, the highest." "i can certainly never be anything but the lowest," she said. "it is fit no one here should think much of me, for i have only given the refuse of my life to god. and besides, i had never much power to think; and the little i had seems gone since eberhard died. i had only a little power to love; and i thought that was dead. but since you came, i begin to think i might yet love a little." as i left the cell she called me back. "what shall i do when my thoughts wander, as they always do in the long prayers?" she asked. "make shorter prayers, i think, oftener," i said. "i think that would please god as much." _august_, . the months pass on very much the same here; but i do not find them monotonous. i am permitted by the prioress to wait on the sick, and also often to teach the younger novices. this little world grows larger to me every week. it is a world of human hearts,--and what a world there is in every heart! for instance, aunt agnes! i begin now to know her. all the sisterhood look up to her as almost a saint already. but i do not believe she thinks so herself. for many months after i entered the cloister she scarcely seemed to notice me; but last week she brought herself into a low fever by the additional fasts and severities she has been imposing on herself lately. it was my night to watch in the infirmary when she became ill. at first she seemed to shrink from receiving anything at my hands. "can they not send any one else?" she asked sternly. "it is appointed to me," i said, "in the order of the sisterhood." she bowed her head, and made no further opposition to my nursing her. and it was very sweet to me, because in spite of all the settled, grave impassiveness of her countenance, i could not help seeing something there which recalled dear aunt cotta. she spoke to me very little; but i felt her large deep eyes following me as i stirred little concoctions of herbs on the fire, or crept softly about the room. towards morning she said, "child, you are tired--come and lie down;" and she pointed to a little bed beside her own. peremptory as were the words, there was a tone in them different from the usual metallic firmness in her voice--which froze elsè's heart--a tremulousness which was almost tender. i could not resist the command, especially as she said she felt much better; and in a few minutes, bad nurse that i was, i fell asleep. how long i slept i know not, but i was awakened by a slight movement in the room, and looking up, i saw aunt agnes's bed empty. in my first moment of bewildered terror i thought of arousing the sisterhood, when i noticed that the door of the infirmary which opened on the gallery of the chapel was slightly ajar. softly i stole towards it, and there, in the front of the gallery, wrapped in a sheet, knelt aunt agnes, looking more than ever like the picture of death which she always recalled to elsè. her lips, which were as bloodless as her face, moved with passionate rapidity; her thin hands feebly counted the black beads of her rosary; and her eyes were fixed on a picture of the _mater dolorosa_ with the seven swords in her heart, over one of the altars. there was no impassiveness in the poor sharp features and trembling lips then. her whole soul seemed going forth in an agonized appeal to that pierced heart; and i heard her murmur, "in vain! holy virgin, plead for me! it has been all in vain. the flesh is no more dead in me than the first day. that child's face and voice stir my heart more than all thy sorrows. this feeble tie of nature has more power in me than all the relationships of the heavenly city. it has been in vain--all, all in vain. i cannot quench the fires of earth in my heart." i scarcely ventured to interrupt her, but as she bowed her head on her hands, and fell almost prostrate on the floor of the chapel, while her whole frame heaved with repressed sobs, i went forward and gently lifted her, saying, "sister agnes, i am responsible for the sick to-night. you must come back." she did not resist. a shudder passed through her; then the old stony look came back to her face, more rigid then ever, and she suffered me to wrap her up in the bed, and give her a warm drink. i do not know whether she suspects that i heard her. she is more reserved with me than ever; but to me those resolute, fixed features, and that hard, firm voice, will never more be what they were before. no wonder that the admiration of the sisterhood has no power to elate aunt agnes, and that their wish to elect her sub-prioress had no seduction for her. she is striving in her inmost soul after an ideal, which, could she reach it, what would she be? as regards all human feeling and earthly life, _dead_! and just as she hoped this was attained, a voice--a poor, friendly child's voice--falls on her ear, and she finds that what she deemed death was only a dream in an undisturbed slumber, and that the whole work has to begin again. it is a fearful combat, this concentrating all the powers of life on producing death in life. can this be what god means? thank god, at least, that my vocation is lower. the humbling work in the infirmary, and the trials of temper in the school of the novices, seem to teach me more, and to make me feel that i _am_ nothing and have nothing in myself, more than all my efforts to _feel_ nothing. my "theologia" says, indeed, that true self-abnegation is freedom; and freedom cannot be attained until we are above the fear of punishment or the hope of reward. elsè cannot bear this; and when i spoke of it the other day to poor sister beatrice, she said it bewildered her poor brain altogether to think of it. but i do not take it in that sense. i think it must mean that love is its own reward; and grieving him we love, who has so loved us, our worst punishment. and that seems to me quite true. xii. elsè's story. wittemberg, _june_, . our eva seems happy at the convent. she has taken the vows, and is now finally sister ave. she has also sent us some eye-water for the father. but in spite of all we can do his sight seems failing. in some way or other i think my father's loss of sight has brought blessing to the family. our grandmother, who is very feeble now, and seldom leaves her chair by the stove, has become much more tolerant of his schemes since there is no chance of their being carried out, and listens with remarkable patience to his statements of the wonders he would have achieved had his sight only been continued a few years. nor does the father himself seem as much dejected as one would have expected. when i was comforting him to-day by saying how much less anxious our mother looks, he replied,-- "yes, my child, the præter pluperfect subjunctive is a more comfortable tense to live in than the future subjunctive, for any length of time." i looked perplexed, and he explained, "it is easier, when once one has made up one's mind to it, to say, 'had i had this i might have done that,' than, 'if i can have this i shall do that,'--at least it is easier to the anxious and excitable feminine mind." "but to you, father?" "to me it is a consolation at last to be appreciated. even your grandmother understands at length how great the results would have been if i could only have had eye-sight to perfect that last invention for using steam to draw water." our grandmother must certainly have put great restraint on her usually frank expression of opinion, if she has led our father to believe she had any confidence in that last scheme; for, i must confess, that of all our father's inventions and discoveries, the whole family consider this idea about the steam the wildest and most impracticable of all. the secret of perpetual motion might, no doubt, be discovered, and a clock be constructed which would never need winding up,--i see no great difficulty in that. it might be quite possible to transmute lead into gold, or iron into silver, if one could find exactly the right proportions. my father has explained all that to me quite clearly. the elixir which would prolong life indefinitely seems to me a little more difficult; but this notion of pumping up water by means of the steam which issues from boiling water and disperses in an instant, we all agree in thinking quite visionary, and out of the question; so that it is, perhaps, as well our poor father should not have thrown away any more expense or time on it. besides, we had already had two or three explosions from his experiments; and some of the neighbours were beginning to say very unpleasant things about the black art, and witchcraft; so that on the whole, no doubt, it is all for the best. i would not, however, for the world, have hinted this to him; therefore i only replied, evasively,-- "our grandmother has indeed been much gentler and more placid lately." "it is not only that," he rejoined; "she has an intelligence far superior to that of most women,--she comprehends. and then," he continued, "i am not without hopes that that young nobleman, ulrich von gersdorf, who comes here so frequently and asks about eva, may one day carry out my schemes. he and chriemhild begin to enter into the idea quite intelligently. besides, there is master reichenbach, the rich merchant to whom your aunt cotta introduced us; he has money enough to carry things out in the best style. he certainly does not promise much, but he is an intelligent listener, and that is a great step. gottfried reichenbach is an enlightened man for a merchant, although he is, perhaps, rather slow in comprehension, and a little over-cautious." "he is not over-cautious in his alms, father," i said; "at least dr. martin luther says so." "perhaps not," he said. "on the whole, certainly, the citizens of wittemberg are very superior to those of eisenach, who were incredulous and dull to the last degree. it will be a great thing if reichenbach and von gersdorf take up this invention. reichenbach can introduce it at once among the patrician families of the great cities with whom he is connected, and von gersdorf would promote it among his kindred knights. it would not, indeed, be such an advantage to our family as if pollux and christopher, or our poor fritz, had carried it out. but never mind, elsè, my child, we were children of adam before we were cottas. we must think not only of the family, but of the world." master reichenbach, indeed, may take a genuine interest in my father's plans, but i have suspicions of ulrich von gersdorf. he seems to me far more interested in chriemhild's embroidery than in our father's steam-pump; and although he continues to talk of eva as if he thought her an angel, he certainly sometimes looks at chriemhild as if he thought her a creature as interesting. i do not like such transitions; and, besides, his conversation is so very different, in my opinion, from master reichenbach's. ulrich von gersdorf has no experience of life beyond a boar-hunt, a combat with some rival knights, or a foray on some defenceless merchants. his life has been passed in the castle of an uncle of his in the thuringian forest; yet i cannot wonder that chriemhild listens, with a glow of interest on her face, as she sits with her eyes bent on her embroidery, to his stories of ambushes and daring surprises. but to me this life seems rude and lawless. ulrich's uncle was unmarried; and they had no ladies in the castle except a widowed aunt of ulrich's, who seems to be as proud as lucifer, and especially to pride herself on being able to wear pearls and velvet, which no burgher's wife may appear in. ulrich's mother died early. i fancy she was gentler and of a truer nobleness. he says the only book they have in the castle is an old illuminated missal which belonged to her. he has another aunt, beatrice, who is in the convent at nimptschen with our eva. they sent her there to prevent her marrying the son of a family with whom they had a hereditary feud. i begin to feel, as fritz used to say, that the life of these petty nobles is not nearly so noble as that of the burghers. they seem to know nothing of the world beyond the little district they rule by terror. they have no honest way of maintaining themselves, but live by the hard toil of their poor oppressed peasants, and by the plunder of their enemies. herr reichenbach, on the other hand, is connected with the patrician families in the great city of nürnberg; and although he does not talk much, he has histories to tell of painters and poets, and great events in the broad field of the world. ah, i wish he had known fritz! he likes to hear me talk of him. and then, moreover, herr reichenbach has much to tell me about brother martin luther, who is at the head of the eremite or augustine convent here, and seems to me to be the great man of wittemberg; at least people appear to like him or dislike him more than any one else here. _october_ , . this has been a great day at wittemberg. friar martin luther has been created doctor of divinity. master reichenbach procured us excellent places, and we saw the degree conferred on him by dr. andrew bodenstein of carlstadt. the great bell of the city churches, which only sounds on great occasions, pealed as if for a church festival; all the university authorities marched in procession through the streets; and after taking the vow, friar martin was solemnly invested with the doctor's robes, hat, and ring--a massive gold ring presented to him by the elector. but the part which impressed me most was the oath, which dr. luther pronounced most solemnly, so that the words, in his fine clear voice, rang through the silence. he repeated it after dr. bodenstein, who is commonly called carlstadt. the words in latin, herr reichenbach says, were these (he wrote them for me to send to eva),-- "juro me veritatem evangelicam viriliter defensurum;" which herr reichenbach translated, "_i swear vigorously to defend evangelical truth._" this oath is only required at one other university beside wittemberg--that of tübingen. dr. luther swore it as if he were a knight of olden times, vowing to risk life and limb in some sacred cause. to me, who not could understand the words, his manner was more that of a warrior swearing on his sword, than of a doctor of divinity. and master reichenbach says, "what he has promised he will do!" chriemhild laughs at master reichenbach, because he has entered his name on the list of university students, in order to attend dr. luther's lectures. "with his grave old face, and his grey hair," she says, "to sit among those noisy student boys!" but i can see nothing laughable in it. i think it is a sign of something noble, for a man in the prime of life to be content to learn as a little child. and besides, whatever chriemhild may say, if herr reichenbach is a little bald, and has a few grey hairs, it is not on account of age. grown men, who think and feel, in these stormy times, cannot be expected to have smooth faces and full curly locks, like ulrich von gersdorf. i am sure if i were a man twice as old as he is, there is nothing i should like better than to attend dr. luther's lectures. i have heard him preach once in the city church, and it was quite different from any other sermon i ever heard. he spoke of god and christ, and heaven and hell, with as much conviction and simplicity as if he had been pleading some cause of human wrong, or relating some great events which happened on earth yesterday, instead of reciting it like a piece of latin grammar, as so many of the monks do. i began almost to feel as if i might at last find a religion that would do for me. even christopher was attentive. he said dr. luther called everything by such plain names, one could not help understanding. we have seen him once at our house. he was so respectful to our grandmother, and so patient with my father, and he spoke so kindly of fritz. fritz has written to us, and has recommended us to take dr. martin luther for our family confessor. he says he can never repay the good dr. luther has done to him. and certainly he writes more brightly and hopefully than he ever has since he left us, although he has, alas! finally taken those dreadful, irrevocable vows. _march_, . dr. luther has consented to be our confessor; and thank god i do believe at last i have found the religion which may make me, even me, love god. dr. luther says i have entirely misunderstood god and the lord jesus christ. he seemed to understand all i have been longing for and perplexing myself about all my life, with a glance. when i began to falter out my confessions and difficulties to him, he seemed to see them all spread before him, and explained them all to me. he says i have been thinking of god as a severe judge, an exactor, a harsh creditor, when he is a rich giver, a forgiving saviour, yea, the very fountain of inexpressible love. "god's love," he said, "gives in such a way that it flows from a father's heart, the well-spring of all good. the heart of the giver makes the gift dear and precious; as among ourselves we say of even a trifling gift, 'it comes from a hand we love,' and look not so much at the gift as at the heart." "if we will only consider him in his works, we shall learn that god is nothing else but pure, unutterable love, greater and more than any one can think. the shameful thing is, that the world does not regard this, nor thank him for it, although every day it sees before it such countless benefits from him; and it deserves for its ingratitude that the sun should not shine another moment longer, nor the grass grow; yet he ceases not, without a moment's interval, to love us, and to do us good. language must fail me to speak of his spiritual gifts. here he pours forth for us, not sun and moon, nor heaven and earth, but his own heart, his beloved son, so that he suffered his blood to be shed, and the most shameful death to be inflicted on him, for us wretched, wicked, thankless creatures. how, then, can we say anything but that god is an abyss of endless, unfathomable love?" "the whole bible," he says, "is full of this,--that we should not doubt, but be absolutely certain, that god is merciful, gracious, patient, faithful, and true; who not only will keep his promises, but already has kept and done abundantly beyond what he promised, since he has given his own son for our sins on the cross, that all who believe on him should not perish, but have everlasting life." "whoever believes and embraces this," he added, "that god has given his only son to die for us poor sinners, to him it is no longer any doubt, but the most certain truth, that god reconciles us to himself, and is favourable and heartily gracious to us." "since the gospel shows us christ the son of god, who, according to the will of the father, has offered himself up for us, and has satisfied for sin, the heart can no more doubt god's goodness and grace,--is no more affrighted, nor flies from god, but sets all its hope in his goodness and mercy." "the apostles are always exhorting us," he says, "to continue in the love of god,--that is, that each one should entirely conclude in his heart that he is loved by god; and they set before our eyes a certain proof of it, in that god has not spared his son, but given him for the world, that through his death the world might again have life. "it is god's honour and glory to give liberally. his nature is all pure love; so that if any one would describe or picture god, he must describe one who is pure love, the divine nature being nothing else than a furnace and glow of such love that it fills heaven and earth. "love is an image of god, and not a dead image, nor one painted on paper, but the living essence of the divine nature, which burns full of all goodness. "he is not harsh, as we are to those who have injured us. we withdraw our hand and close our purse, but he is kind to the unthankful and the evil. "he sees thee in thy poverty and wretchedness, and knows thou hast nothing to pay. therefore he freely forgives, and gives thee all." "it is not to be borne," he said, "that christian people should say, we cannot know whether god is favourable to us or not. on the contrary, we should learn to say, i know that i believe in christ, and therefore that god is my gracious father." "what is the reason that god gives?" he said, one day. "what moves him to it? nothing but unutterable love, because he delights to give and to bless. what does he give? not empires merely, not a world full of silver and gold, not heaven and earth only, but his son, who is as great as himself,--that is, eternal and incomprehensible; a gift as infinite as the giver, the very spring and fountain of all grace; yea, the possession and property of all the riches and treasures of god." dr. luther said also, that the best name by which we can think of god is father. "it is a loving, sweet, deep, heart-touching name; for the name of father is in its nature full of inborn sweetness and comfort. therefore, also, we must confess ourselves children of god; for by this name we deeply touch our god, since there is not a sweeter sound to the father, than the voice of the child." all this is wonderful to me. i scarcely dare to open my hand, and take this belief home to my heart. is it then, indeed, thus we must think of god? is he, indeed, as dr. luther says, ready to listen to our feeblest cry, ready to forgive us, and to help us? and if he is indeed like this, and cares what we think of him, how i must have grieved him all these years! not a moment longer! i will not distrust thee a moment longer. see, heavenly father, i have come back! can it, indeed, be possible that god is pleased when we trust him,--pleased when we pray, simply because he loves us? can it indeed be true, as dr. luther says, that love is our greatest virtue; and that we please god best by being kind to each other, just because that is what is most like him? i am sure it is true. it is so good, it must be true. then it is possible for me, even for me, to love god. how is it possible for me _not_ to love him? and it is possible for me, even for me, to be religious, if to be religious is to love god, and to do whatever we can to make those around us happy. but if this is indeed religion, it is happiness, it is freedom,--it is life! why, then, are so many of the religious people i know of a sad countenance, as if they were bond-servants toiling for a hard master? i must ask dr. luther. _april_, . i have asked dr. luther, and he says it is because the devil makes a great deal of the religion we see; that he pretends to be christ, and comes and terrifies people, and scourges them with the remembrance of their sins, and tells them they must not dare to lift up their eyes to heaven, because god is so holy, and they are so sinful. but it is all because he knows that if they _would_ lift their eyes to heaven, their terrors would vanish, and they would see christ there, not as the judge, and the hard, exacting creditor, but as the pitiful, loving saviour. i find it a great comfort to believe in this way in the devil. has he not been trying to teach me his religion all my life? and now i have found him out! he has been telling me lies, not about myself (dr. luther says he cannot paint us more sinful than we are), but lies about god. it helps me almost as much to hear dr. luther speak about the devil as about god--"the malignant, sad spirit," he says, "who loves to make every one sad." with god's help, i will never believe him again. but dr. luther said i shall, often; that he will come again and malign god, and assail my peace in so many ways, that it will be long before i learn to know him. i shuddered when he told me this; but then he reassured me, by telling me a beautiful story, which, he said, was from the bible. it was about a good shepherd and silly, wandering sheep, and a wolf who sought to devour them. "all the care of the shepherd," he said, "is in the tenderest way to attract the sheep to keep close to him; and when they wander, he goes and seeks them, takes them on his shoulder, and carries them safe home. all our wisdom," he says, "is to keep always near this good shepherd, who is christ, and to listen to his voice." i know the lord jesus christ is called the good shepherd. i have seen the picture of him carrying the lamb on his shoulder. but until dr. luther explained it to me, i thought it meant that he was the lord and owner of all the world, who are his flock. but i never thought that he cared for _me_ as his sheep, sought me, called me, watched me, even me, day by day. other people, no doubt, have understood all this before. and yet, if so, why do not the monks preach of it? why should aunt agnes serve him in the convent by penances and self-tormentings, instead of serving him in the world by being kind and helping all around? why should our dear, gentle mother, have such sad, self-reproachful thoughts, and feel as if she and our family were under a curse? dr. luther said that christ was "made a curse for us;" that he, the unspotted and undefiled lamb of god, bore the curse for us on the cross; and that we, believing in him, are not under the curse, but under the blessing--that we are blessed. this, then, is what the crucifix and the _agnus dei_ mean. doubtless many around me have understood all this long ago. i am sure, at least, that our eva understood it. but what inexpressible joy for me, as i sit at my embroidery in the garden, to look up through the apple-blossoms and the fluttering leaves, and to see god's love there;--to listen to the thrush that has built his nest among them, and feel god's love, who cares for the birds, in every note that swells his little throat;--to look beyond to the bright blue depths of the sky, and feel they are a canopy of blessing--the roof of the house of my father; that if clouds pass over, it is the unchangeable light they veil; that, even when the day itself passes, i shall see that the night itself only unveils new worlds of light; and to know that if i could unwrap fold after fold of god's universe, i should only unfold more and more blessing, and see deeper and deeper into the love which is at the heart of all! and then what joy again to turn to my embroidery, and, as my fingers busily ply the needle, to think-- "this is to help my father and mother; this, even this, is a little work of love. and as i sit and stitch, god is pleased with me, and with what i am doing. he gives me this to do, as much as he gives the priests to pray, and dr. luther to preach. i am serving him, and he is near me in my little corner of the world, and is pleased with me--even with me!" oh, fritz and eva! if you had both known this, need you have left us to go and serve god so far away? have i indeed, like st. christopher, found my bank of the river, where i can serve my saviour by helping all the pilgrims i can? better, better than st. christopher; for do i not _know the voice_ that calls to me-- "elsè! elsè! do this for me?" and now i do not feel at all afraid to grow old, which is a great relief, as i am already six-and-twenty, and the children think me nearly as old as our mother. for what is growing old, if dr. martin luther is indeed right (and i am sure he is), but growing daily nearer god, and his holy, happy home! dr. luther says our saviour called heaven his father's house. not that i wish to leave this world. while god wills we should stay here, and is with us, is it not home-like enough for us? _may_, . this morning i was busy making a favourite pudding of the father's, when i heard herr reichenbach's voice at the door. he went into the dwelling room, and soon afterwards chriemhild, atlantis, and thekla, invaded the kitchen. "herr reichenbach wishes to have a consultation," said chriemhild, "and we are sent away." i felt anxious for a moment. it seemed like the old eisenach days; but since we have been at wittemberg we have never gone into debt; so that, after thinking a little, i was reassured. the children were full of speculations what it would be about. chriemhild thought it was some affair of state, because she had seen him in close confabulation with ulrich von gersdorf as he came up the street, and they had probably been discussing some question about the privileges of the nobles and burghers. atlantis believed it had something to do with dr. martin luther, because herr reichenbach had presented the mother with a new pamphlet of the doctor's on entering the room. thekla was sure it was at last the opportunity to make use of one of the father's discoveries,--whether the perpetual clock, or the transmutation of metals, or the steam-pump, she could not tell; but she was persuaded that it was something which was to make our fortunes at last, because herr reichenbach looked so very much in earnest, and was so very respectful to our father. they had not much time to discuss their various theories when we heard herr reichenbach's step pass hurriedly through the passage, and the door closed hastily after him. "do you call that a consultation?" said chriemhild, scornfully; "he has not been here ten minutes." the next instant our mother appeared, looking very pale, and with her voice trembling as she said,-- "elsè, my child, we want you." "you are to know first, elsè," said the children. "well, it is only fair; you are a dear good eldest sister, and will be sure to tell us." i scarcely knew why, but my fingers did not seem as much under control as usual, and it was some moments before i could put the finishing stroke to my pudding, wash my hands, pull down the white sleeves to my wrists, and join them in the dwelling room, so that my mother reappeared with an impatience very unusual for her, and led me in herself. "elsè, darling, come here," said my father. and when he felt my hands in his, he added, "herr reichenbach left a message for thee. other parents often decide these matters for their children, but thy mother and i wish to leave the matter to thee.--couldst thou be his wife?" the question took me by surprise, and i could only say,-- "can it be possible he thinks of me?" "i see nothing impossible in that, my elsè," said my father; "but at all events herr reichenbach has placed that beyond a doubt. the question now is whether our elsè can think of him." i could not say anything. "think well before you reject him," said my father; "he is a good and generous man, he desires no portion with thee; he says thou wouldst be a portion for a king; and i must say he is very intelligent and well-informed, and can appreciate scientific inventions as few men in these days can." "i do not wish him to be dismissed," i faltered. but my tender-hearted mother said, laying my head on her shoulder,-- "yet think well, darling, before you accept him. we are not poor now, and we need no stranger's wealth to make us happy. heaven forbid that our child should sacrifice herself for us. herr reichenbach, is, no doubt, a good and wise man, but i know well a young maiden's fancy. he is little, i know--not tall and stalwart, like our fritz and christopher; and he is a little bald, and he is not very young, and rather grave and silent, and young girls--" "but, mother," i said, "i am not a young girl, i am six-and-twenty; and i do not think herr reichenbach old, and i never noticed that he was bald, and i am sure to me he is not silent." "that will do, elsè," said the grandmother, laughing from her corner by the stove. "son and daughter, let these two settle it together. they will arrange matters better than we shall for them." and in the evening herr reichenbach came again, and everything was arranged. "and that is what the consultation was about!" said the children, not without some disappointment. "it seems such an ordinary thing," said atlantis, "we are so used to seeing herr reichenbach. he comes almost every day." "i do not see that that is any objection," said chriemhild; "but it seems hardly like being married, only just to cross the street. his house is just opposite." "but it is a great deal prettier than ours," said thekla. "i like herr reichenbach; no one ever took such an interest in my drawings as he does. he tells me where they are wrong, and shows me how to make them right, as if he really felt it of some consequence; which it is, you know, elsè, because one day i mean to embroider and help the family, like you. and no one was ever so kind to nix as he is. he took the dog on his knee the other day, and drew out a splinter which had lamed him, which nix would not let any one else do but me. nix is very fond of herr reichenbach, and so am i. he is much wiser, i think, than ulrich, who teases nix, and pretends never to know my cats from my cows; and i do not see that he is much older; besides, i could not bear our elsè to live a step further off." and thekla climbed up on my lap and kissed me, while nix stood on his hind legs and barked, evidently thinking it was a great occasion. so that two of the family at least have given their consent. but none of the family know yet what herr reichenbach said to me when we stood for a few minutes by the window, before he left this evening. he said-- "elsè, it is god who gives me this joy. ever since the evening when you all arrived at wittemberg, and i saw you tenderly helping the aged and directing the young ones, and never flurried in all the bustle, but always at leisure to thank any one for any little kindness, or to help any one out of any little difficulty, i thought you were the light of this home, and i prayed god one day to make you the light of mine." ah! that shows how love veils people's faults; but he did not know fritz, and not much of eva. they were the true sunshine of our home. however, at all events, with god's help, i will do my very best to make herr reichenbach's home bright. but the best of all is, i am not afraid to accept this blessing. i believe it is god, out of his inexpressible love, as dr. luther says, who has given it me, and i am not afraid he will think me too happy. before i had dr. luther for my confessor, i should never have known if it was to be a blessing or a curse; but now i am not afraid. a chain seems to have dropped from my heart, and a veil from my eyes, and i can call god father, and take everything fearlessly from him. and i know gottfried feels the same. since i never had a vocation for the higher religious life, it is an especial mercy for me to have found a religion which enables a very poor every-day maiden in the world to love god and to seek his blessing. _june._ our mother has been full of little tender apologies to me this week, for having called gottfried (herr reichenbach says i am to call him so) old, and bald, and little, and grave. "you know, darling, i only meant i did not want you to accept him for our sakes. and after all, as you say, he is scarcely bald; and they say all men who think much lose their hair early; and i am sure it is no advantage to be always talking; and every one cannot be as tall as our fritz and christopher." "and after all, dear mother," said the grandmother, "elsè did _not_ choose herr reichenbach for your sakes; but are you quite sure he did not choose elsè for her father's sake? he was always so interested in the steam-pump!" my mother and i are much cheered by seeing the quiet influence herr reichenbach seems to have over christopher, whose companions and late hours have often caused us anxiety lately. christopher is not distrustful of him, because he is no priest, and no great favourer of monks and convents; and he is not so much afraid about christopher as we timid, anxious women were beginning to be. he thinks there is good metal in him; and he says the best ore cannot look like gold until it is fused. it is so difficult for us women, who have to watch from our quiet homes afar, to distinguish the glow of the smelting furnace from the glare of a conflagration. wittemberg, _september_, . this morning, herr reichenbach, christopher, and ulrich von gersdorf (who is studying here for a time) came in full of excitement, from a discussion they had been hearing between dr. luther and some of the doctors and professors of erfurt. i do not know that i quite clearly understand what it was about; but they seemed to think it of great importance. our house has become rather a gathering place of late; partly, i think, on account of my father's blindness, which always insures that there will be some one at home. it seems that dr. luther attacks the old methods of teaching in the universities, which makes the older professors look on him as a dangerous innovator, while the young delight in him as a hero fighting their battles. and yet the authorities dr. luther wishes to re-instate are older than those he attacks. he demands that nothing shall be received as the standard of theological truth except the holy scriptures. i cannot understand why there should be so much conflict about this, because i thought all we believed was founded on the holy scriptures. i suppose it is not; but if not, on whose authority? i must ask gottfried this one day when we are alone. the discussion to-day was between dr. andrew bodenstein, archdeacon of wittemberg, dr. luther, and dr. jodocus of eisenach, called trutvetter, his old teacher. dr. carlstadt himself, they said, seemed quite convinced; and dr. jodocus is silenced and is going back to erfurt. the enthusiasm of the students is great. the great point of dr. luther's attack seems to be aristotle, who was a heathen greek. i cannot think why these church doctors should be so eager to defend him; but herr reichenbach says all the teaching of the schools and all the doctrine of indulgences are in some way founded on this aristotle, and that dr. luther wants to clear away everything which stands as a screen between the students and the bible. ulrich von gersdorf said that our doctor debates like his uncle, franz von sickingen, fights. he stands like a rock on some point he feels firm on; and then, when his opponents are weary of trying to move him, he rushes suddenly down on them, and sweeps them away like a torrent. "but his great secret seems to be," remarked christopher, "that he believes every word he says. he speaks, like other men work, as if every stroke were to tell." and gottfried said, quietly, "he is fighting the battle of god with the scribes and pharisees of our days; and whether he triumph or perish, the battle will be won. it is a battle, not merely against falsehood, but for truth, to keep a position he has won." "when i hear him," said ulrich, "i wish my student days over, and long to be in the old castle in the thuringian forest, to give everything good there a new impulse. he makes me feel the way to fight the world's great battles is for each to conquer the enemies of god in his own heart and home. he speaks of aristotle and augustine; but he makes me think of the sloth and tyranny in the castle, and the misery and oppression in the peasant's hut, which are to me what aristotle and the schoolmen are to him." "and i," said christopher, "when he speaks, think of our printing press, until my daily toil there seems the highest work i could do; and to be a printer, and wing such words as his through the world, the noblest thing on earth." "but his lectures fight the good fight even more than his disputations," remarked gottfried. "in these debates he clears the world of the foe; but in his explanations of the psalms and the romans, he carries the battle within, and clears the heart of the lies which kept it back from god. in his attacks on aristotle, he leads you to the bible as the one source of truth; in his discourses on justification by faith he leads you to god as the one source of holiness and joy." "they say poor dr. jodocus is quite ill with vexation at his defeat," said christopher; "and that there are many bitter things said against dr. luther at erfurt." "what does that matter," rejoined ulrich, "since wittemberg is becoming every month more thronged with students from all parts of germany, and the augustinian cloister is already full of young monks, sent hither from various convents, to study under dr. luther? the youth and vigour of the nation are with us. let the dead bury their dead." "ah, children," murmured the grandmother, looking up from her knitting, "that is a funeral procession that lasts long. the young always speak of the old as if they had been born old. do you think our hearts never throbbed high with hope, and that we never fought with dragons? yet the old serpent is not killed yet. nor will he be dead when we are dead, and you are old, and your grandchildren take their place in the old fight, and think they are fighting the first battle the world has seen, and vanquishing the last enemy." "perhaps not," said gottfried; "but the last enemy will be overcome at last, and who knows how soon?" wittemberg, _october_, . it is a strong bond of union between herr reichenbach and me, our reverence and love for dr. luther. he is lecturing now on the romans and the psalms, and as i sit at my spinning-wheel, or sew, gottfried often reads to me notes from these lectures, or tells me what they have been about. this is a comfort to me also, because he has many thoughts and doubts which, were it not for his friendship with dr. luther, would make me tremble for him. they are so new and strange to me; and as it is i never venture to speak of them to my mother. he thinks there is great need of reformations and changes in the church. he even thinks christopher not far from right in his dislike of many of the priests and monks, who, he says, lead lives which are a disgrace to christendom. but his chief detestation is the sale of indulgences, now preached in many of the towns of saxony by dr. tetzel. he says it is a shameless traffic in lies, and that most men of intelligence and standing in the great cities think so. and he tells me that a very good man, a professor of theology--dr. john wesel,--preached openly against them about fifty years ago at the university of erfurt, and afterwards at worms and mainz; and that john of goch and other holy men were most earnest in denouncing them. and when i asked if the pope did not sanction them, he said that to understand what the pope is one needs to go to rome. he went there in his youth, not on pilgrimage, but on mercantile business, and he told me that the wickedness he saw there, especially in the family of the reigning pope, the borgia, for many years made him hate the very name of religion. indeed, he said it was principally through dr. luther that he had begun again to feel there could be a religion, which, instead of being a cloak for sin, should be an incentive to holiness. he says also that i have been quite mistaken about "reineke fuchs;" that it is no vulgar jest-book, mocking at really sacred things, but a bitter, earnest satire against the hypocrisy which practices all kinds of sin in the name of sacred things. he doubts even if the calixtines and hussites are as bad as they have been represented to be. it alarms me sometimes to hear him say these things. his world is so much larger than mine, it is difficult for my thoughts to follow him into it. if the world is so bad, and there is so much hypocrisy in the holiest places, perhaps i have been hard on poor christopher after all. but if fritz has found it so, how unhappy it must make him! can really religious people like fritz and eva do nothing better for the world, but leave it to grow more and more corrupt and unbelieving, while they sit apart to weave their robes of sanctity in convents. it does seem time for something to be done. i wonder who will do it? i thought it might be the pope; but gottfried shakes his head, and says, "no good thing can begin at rome." "or the prelates?" i asked one day. "they are too intent," he said, "on making their courts as magnificent as those of the princes, to be able to interfere with the abuses by which their revenues are maintained." "or the princes?" "the friendship of the prelates is too important to them, for them to interfere in spiritual matters." "or the emperor?" "the emperor," he said, "has enough to do to hold his own against the princes, the prelates, and the pope." "or the knights?" "the knights are at war with the all world," he replied; "to say nothing of their ceaseless private feuds with each other. with the peasants rising on one side in wild insurrection, the great nobles contending against their privileges on the other, and the great burgher families throwing their barbarous splendour into the shade as much as the city palaces do their bare robber castles, the knights and petty nobles have little but bitter words to spare for the abuses of the clergy. besides, most of them have relations whom they hope to provide for with some good abbey." "then the peasants!" i suggested. "did not the gospel first take root among peasants?" "_inspired_ peasants and fishermen!" he replied, thoughtfully. "peasants who had walked up and down the land three years in the presence of the master. but who is to teach our peasants now? they cannot read!" "then it must be the burghers," i said. "each may be prejudiced in favour of his order," he replied, with a smile; "but i do think if better days dawn, it will be through the cities. there the new learning takes root; there the rich have society and cultivation, and the poor have teachers; and men's minds are brightened by contact and debate, and there is leisure to think and freedom to speak. if a reformation of abuses were to begin, i think the burghers would promote it most of all." "but who is to begin it?" i asked. "has no one ever tried?" "many have tried," he replied sadly; "and many have perished in trying. while they were assailing one abuse, others were increasing. or while they endeavoured to heal some open wound, some one arose and declared that it was impossible to separate the disease from the whole frame, and that they were attempting the life of our holy mother the church." "who, then, will venture to begin?" i said. "can it be dr. luther? he is bold enough to venture anything; and since he has done so much good to fritz, and to you, and to me, why not to the whole church?" "dr. luther is faithful enough, and bold enough for anything his conscience calls him to," said gottfried, "but he is occupied with saving men's souls, not with reforming ecclesiastical abuses." "but if the ecclesiastical abuses came to interfere with the salvation of men's souls," i suggested, "what would dr. luther do then?" "we should see, elsè," said gottfried. "if the wolves attacked one of dr. luther's sheep, i do not think he would care with what weapon he rescued it, or at what risk." xiii. eva's story. nimptschen, . great changes have taken place during these last three years in aunt cotta's home. elsè has been married more than two years, and sends me wonderful narratives of the beauty and wisdom of her little margarethe, who begins now to lisp the names of mother, and father, and aunts. elsè has also taught the little creature to kiss her hand to a picture they have of me, and call it cousin eva. they will not adopt my convent name. chriemhild also is betrothed to the young knight, ulrich von gersdorf, who has a castle in the thuringian forest; and she writes that they often speak of sister ave, and that he keeps the dried violets still, with a lock of his mother's hair and a relic of his patron saint. chriemhild says i should scarcely know him again, he is become so earnest and so wise, and so full of good purposes. and little thekla writes that she also understands something of latin. elsè's husband has taught her; and there is nothing elsè and gottfried reichenbach like so much as to hear her sing the hymns cousin eva used to sing. they seem to think of me as a kind of angel sister, who was early taken to god, and will never grow old. it is very sweet to be remembered thus; but sometimes it seems as if it were hardly me they were remembering or loving, but what i was or might have been. would they recognize cousin eva in the grave, quiet woman of twenty-two i have become? for whilst in the old home time seems to mark his course like a stream by growth and life, here in the convent he seems to mark it only by the slow falling of the shadow on the silent dial--the shadow of death. in the convent there is no growth but growing old. in aunt cotta's home the year expanded from winter into spring, and summer, and autumn--seed-time and harvest--the season of flowers and the season of fruits. the seasons grew into each other, we knew not how or when. in the convent the year is sharply divided into december, january, february, march, and april, with nothing to distinguish one month from another but their names and dates. in our old home the day brightened from dawn to noon, and then mellowed into sunset, and softly faded into night. here in the convent the day is separated into hours by the clock. sister beatrice's poor faded face is slowly becoming a little more faded; aunt agnes's a little more worn and sharp; and i, like the rest, am six years older than i was six years ago, when i came here; and that is all. it is true, fresh novices have arrived, and have taken the irrevocable vows, and fair young faces are around me; but my heart aches sometimes when i look at them, and think that they, like the rest of us, have closed the door on life, with all its changes, and have entered on that monotonous pathway to the grave whose stages are simply growing old. some of these novices come full of high aspirations for a religious life. they have been told about the heavenly spouse, who will fill their consecrated hearts with pure, unutterable joys, the world can never know. many come as sacrifices to family poverty or family pride, because their noble parents are too poor to maintain them suitably, or in order that their fortunes may swell the dower of some married sister. i know what disappointment is before them when they learn that the convent is but a poor, childish mimicry of the world, with its petty ambitions and rivalries, but without the life and the love. i know the noblest will suffer most, and may, perhaps, fall the lowest. to narrow, apathetic natures, the icy routine of habit will more easily replace the varied flow of life. they will fit into their harness sooner, and become as much interested in the gossip of the house or the order, the election of superiors, or the scandal of some neighbouring nunnery, as they would have become in the gossip of the town or village they would have lived in, in the world. but warm hearts and high spirits--these will chafe and struggle, and dream they have reached depths of self-abasement, or soared to heights of mystical devotion, and then awake, with bitter self-reproaches, to find themselves too weak to cope with some small temptation, like aunt agnes. these i will help all i can. but i have learned, since i came to nimptschen, that it is a terrible and perilous thing to take the work of the training of our souls out of god's hands into our own. the pruning-knife in his hands must sometimes wound and seem to impoverish; but in ours it cuts, and wounds, and impoverishes, and does _not_ prune. we can, indeed, inflict pain on ourselves; but god alone can make pain healing, or suffering discipline. i can only pray that, however mistaken many may be in immuring themselves here, thou who art the good physician wilt take us, with all our useless self-inflicted wounds, and all our wasted, self-stunted faculties, and as we are and as thou art, still train us for thyself. the infirmary is what interests me most. having secluded ourselves from all the joys and sorrows and vicissitudes of common life, we seem scarcely to have left anything in god's hands, wherewith to try our faith and subdue our wills to his, except sickness. bereavements we cannot know who have bereaved ourselves of all companionship with our beloved for evermore on earth. nor can we know the trials either of poverty or of prosperity, since we can never experience either; but, having taken the vow of voluntary poverty on ourselves, whilst we can never call anything individually our own, we are freed from all anxieties by becoming members of a richly-endowed order. sickness only remains beyond our control; and, therefore, when i see any of the sisterhood laid on the bed of suffering, i think-- "_god has laid thee there!_" and i feel more sure that it is the right thing. i still instruct the novices; but sometimes the dreary question comes to me-- "for _what_ am i instructing them?" life has no future for them--only a monotonous prolonging of the monotonous present. i try to feel, "i am training them for eternity." but who can do that but god, who inhabiteth eternity, and sees the links which connect every moment of the little circles of time with the vast circumference of the everlasting future? but i do my best. catharine von bora, a young girl of sixteen, who has lately entered the convent, interests me deeply. there is such strength in her character and such warmth in her heart. but alas! what scope is there for these here? aunt agnes has not opened her heart in any way to me. true, when i was ill, she watched over me as tenderly as aunt cotta could; but when i recovered, she seemed to repel all demonstrations of gratitude and affection, and went on with that round of penances and disciplines, which make the nuns reverence her as so especially saintly. sometimes i look with longing to the smoke and lights in the village we can see among the trees from the upper windows of the convent. i know that each little wreath of smoke comes from the hearth of a home where there are father and mother and little children; and the smoke wreaths seem to me to rise like holy clouds of incense to god our father in heaven. but the alms given so liberally by the sisterhood are given at the convent-gate, so that we never form any closer connection with the poor around us than that of beggars and almoners; and i long to be their _friend_. sometimes i am afraid i acted in impatient self-will in leaving aunt cotta's home, and that i should have served god better by remaining there, and that, after all, my departure may have left some little blank it would not have been useless to fill. as the girls marry, aunt cotta might have found me a comfort, and, as "cousin eva," i might perhaps have been more of a help to elsè's children than i can be to the nuns here as sister ave. but whatever might have been, it is impatience and rebellion to think of that now; and nothing can separate me from god and his love. somehow or other, however, even the "theologia germanica," and the high, disinterested communion with god it teaches, seemed sweeter to me, in the intervals of an interrupted and busy life, than as the business of this uninterrupted leisure. the hours of contemplation were more blessed for the very trials and occupations which seemed to hinder them. sometimes i feel as if my heart also were freezing, and becoming set and hard. i am afraid, indeed, it would, were it not for poor sister beatrice, who has had a paralytic stroke, and is now a constant inmate of the infirmary. she speaks at times very incoherently, and cannot think at any time connectedly. but i have found a book which interests her; it is the latin gospel of st. luke, which i am allowed to take from the convent library and translate to her. the narratives are so brief and simple, she can comprehend them, and she never wearies of hearing them. the very familiarity endears them, and to me they are always new. but it is very strange that there is nothing about penance or vows in it, or the adoration of the blessed virgin. i suppose i shall find that in the other gospels, or in the epistles, which were written after our lady's assumption into heaven. sister beatrice likes much to hear me sing the hymn by bernard of clugni, on the perpetuity of joy in heaven:[ ]-- here brief is the sighing, and brief is the crying, for brief is the life! the life there is endless, the joy there is endless, and ended the strife. what joys are in heaven? to whom are they given? ah! what? and to whom? the stars to the earth-born, "best robes" to the sin-worn, the crown for the doom! o country the fairest! our country the dearest, we press towards thee! o sion the golden! our eyes are now holden, thy light till we see: thy crystalline ocean, unvexed by commotion, thy fountain of life; thy deep peace unspoken, pure, sinless, unbroken,-- thy peace beyond strife: thy meek saints all glorious, thy martyrs victorious, who suffer no more; thy halls full of singing, thy hymns ever ringing along thy safe shore. like the lily for whiteness, like the jewel for brightness, thy vestments, o bride! the lamb ever with thee, the bridegroom is with thee,-- with thee to abide! we know not, we know not, all human words show not, the joys we may reach; the mansions preparing, the joys for our sharing, the welcome for each. o sion the golden! my eyes are still holden, thy light till i see; and deep in thy glory, unveiled then before me, my king, look on thee! [footnote : hic breve vivitur, hic breve plangitur, hic breve fletur, non breve vivere, non breve plangere, retribuetur. o retributio! stat brevis actio, vita perennis, o retributio! coelica mansio stat lue plenis, etc. etc., etc.] _april_, . the whole of the augustinian order in saxony has been greatly moved by the visitation of dr. martin luther. he has been appointed deputy vicar-general in the place of dr. staupitz, who has gone on a mission to the netherlands, to collect relics for the elector frederic's new church at wittemberg. last april dr. luther visited the monastery of grimma, not far from us; and through our prioress, who is connected with the prior of grimma, we hear much about it. he strongly recommends the study of the scriptures and of st. augustine, in preference to every other book, by the brethren and sisters of his order. we have begun to follow his advice in our convent, and a new impulse seems given to everything. i have also seen two beautiful letters of dr. martin luther's, written to two brethren of the augustinian order. both were written in april last, and they have been read by many amongst us. the first was to brother george spenlein, a monk at memmingen. it begins, "in the name of jesus christ." after speaking of some private pecuniary matters, he writes:-- "as to the rest, i desire to know how it goes with thy soul; whether, weary of its own righteousness, it learns to breathe and to trust in the righteousness of christ. for in our age the temptation to presumption burns in many, and chiefly in those who are trying with all their might to be just and good. ignorant of the righteousness of god, which in christ is given to us richly and without price, they seek in themselves to do good works, so that at last they may have confidence to stand before god, adorned with merits and virtues,--which is impossible. thou, when with us, wert of this opinion, and so was i; but now i contend against this error, although i have not yet conquered it. "therefore, my dear brother, learn christ and him crucified; learn to sing to him, and, despairing of thyself, to say to him, 'lord jesus, thou art my righteousness, but i am thy sin. thou hast taken me upon thyself, and given to me what is thine; thou hast taken on thee what thou was not, and has given to me what i was not.' take care not to aspire to such a purity that thou shalt no longer seem to thyself a sinner; for christ does not dwell except in sinners. for this he descended from heaven, where he abode with the just, that he might abide with sinners. meditate on this love of his, and thou shalt drink in his sweet consolations. for if, by our labours and afflictions, we could attain quiet of conscience, why did he die? therefore, only in him, by a believing self-despair, both of thyself and of thy works, wilt thou find peace. for he has made thy sins his, and his righteousness he has made thine." aunt agnes seemed to drink in these words like a patient in a raging fever. she made me read them over to her again and again, and then translate and copy them; and now she carries them about with her everywhere. to me the words that follow are as precious. dr. luther says, that as christ hath borne patiently with us wanderers, we should also bear with others. "prostrate thyself before the lord jesus," he writes, "seek all that thou lackest. he himself will teach thee all, even to do for others as he has done for thee." the second letter was to brother george leiffer of erfurt. it speaks of affliction thus:-- "the cross of christ is divided throughout the whole world. to each his portion comes in time, and does not fail. thou, therefore, do not seek to cast thy portion from thee, but rather receive it as a holy relic, to be enshrined, not in a gold or silver reliquary, but in the sanctuary of a golden, that is, a loving and submissive heart. for if the wood of the cross was so consecrated by contact with the flesh and blood of christ that it is considered as the noblest of relics, how much more are injuries, persecutions, sufferings, and the hatred of men, sacred relics, consecrated not by the touch of his body, but by contact with his most loving heart and godlike will! these we should embrace, and bless, and cherish, since through him the curse is transmuted into blessing, suffering into glory, the cross into joy." sister beatrice delights in these words, and murmurs them over to herself as i have explained them to her. "yes, i understand; this sickness, helplessness,--all i have lost and suffered,--are sacred relics from my saviour; not because he forgets, but because he remembers me--he remembers me. sister ave, i am content." and then she likes me to sing her favourite hymn _jesu dulcis memoria_:-- o jesus, thy sweet memory can fill the heart with ecstasy; but passing all things sweet that be, thy presence, lord, to me. what hope, o jesus, thou canst render to those who other hopes surrender! to those who seek thee, o how tender! but what to those who find! with mary, ere the morning break, him at the sepulchre i seek,-- would hear him to my spirit speak, and see him with my heart. wherever i may chance to be, thee first my heart desires to see; how glad when i discover thee; how blest when i retain! beyond all treasures is thy grace;-- oh, when wilt thou thy steps retrace and satisfy me with thy face, and make me wholly glad? then come, oh, come, thou perfect king, of boundless glory, boundless spring; arise, and fullest daylight bring, jesus, expected long! _may_, . aunt agnes has spoken to me at last. abruptly and sternly, as if more angry with herself than repenting or rejoicing, she said to me this morning, "child, those words of dr. luther's have reached my heart. i have been trying all my life to be a saint, and so to reach god. and i have failed utterly. and now i learn that i am a sinner, and yet that god's love reaches me. the cross, the cross of christ, is my pathway from hell to heaven. i am not a saint. i shall never be a saint. christ is the only saint, the holy one of god; and he has borne my sins, and he is my righteousness. he has done it all; and i have nothing left but to give him all the glory, and to love, to love, to love him to all eternity. and i will do it," she added fervently, "poor, proud, destitute, and sinful creature that i am. i cannot help it; i must." but strong and stern as the words were, how changed aunt agnes's manner!--humble and simple as a child's. and as she left me for some duty in the house, she kissed my forehead, and said, "ah, child, love me a little, if you can,--not as a saint, but as a poor, sinful old woman, who among her worst sins has counted loving thee too much, which was perhaps, after all, among the least; love me a little, eva, for my sister's sake, whom you love so much." xiv. elsè's story. _august_, . yes, our little gretchen is certainly a remarkable child. although she is not yet two years old, she knows all of us by name. she tyranizes over us all, except me. i deny her many things which she cries for; except when gottfried is present, who, unfortunately, cannot bear to see her unhappy for a moment, and having (he says) had his temper spoilt in infancy by a cross nurse, has no notion of infant education, except to avoid contradiction. christopher, who always professed a supreme contempt for babies, gives her rides on his shoulder in the most submissive manner. but best of all, i love to see her sitting on my blind father's knee, and stroking his face with a kind of tender, pitiful reverence, as if she felt there was something missing there. i have taught her, too, to say fritz's name, when i show her the little lock i wear of his hair; and to kiss eva's picture. i cannot bear that they should be as lost or dead to her. but i am afraid she is perplexed between eva's portrait and the picture of the holy virgin, which i teach her to bow and cross her forehead before; because sometimes she tries to kiss the picture of our lady, and to twist her little fingers into the sacred sign before eva's likeness. however, by-and-by she will distinguish better. and are not eva and fritz indeed our family saints and patrons? i do believe their prayers bring down blessings on us all. for our family has bean so much blessed lately! the dear mother's face looks so bright, and has regained something of its old sweet likeness to the mother of mercy. and i am so happy, so brimful of happiness. and it certainly does make me feel more religious than i did. not the home-happiness only, i mean, but that best blessing of all, that came first, before i knew that gottfried cared for me,--the knowledge of the love of god to me,--that best riches of all, without which all our riches would be mere cares--the riches of the treasury of god freely opened to us in christ jesus our lord. gottfried is better than i ever thought he was. perhaps he really grows better every year; certainly he seems better and dearer to me. chriemhild and ulrich are to be married very soon. he has gone now to see franz von sickingen, and his other relations in the rhineland, and to make arrangements connected with his marriage. last year chriemhild and atlantis stayed some weeks at the old castle in the thuringian forest, near eisenach. a wild life it seemed to be, from their description, deep in the heart of the forest, in a lonely fortress on a rock, with only a few peasants' huts in sight; and with all kinds of strange legends of demon huntsmen, and elves, and sprites haunting the neighborhood. to me it seems almost as desolate as the wilderness where john the baptist lived on locusts and wild honey; but chriemhild thought it delightful. she made acquaintance with some of the poor peasants, and they seemed to think her an angel,--an opinion (atlantis says) shared by ulrich's old uncle and aunt, to say nothing of ulrich himself. at first the aged aunt hermentrude was rather distant; but on the schönberg pedigree having been duly tested and approved, the old lady at length considered herself free to give vent to her feelings, whilst the old knight courteously protested that he had always seen chriemhild's pedigree in her face. and ulrich says there is one great advantage in the solitude and strength of his castle,--he could offer an asylum at any time to dr. luther, who has of late become an object of bitter hatred to some of the priests. dr. luther is most kind to our little gretchen, whom he baptized. he says little children often understand god better than the wisest doctors of divinity. thekla has experienced her first sorrow. her poor little foundling, nix, is dead. for some days the poor creature had been ailing, and at last he lay for some hours quivering, as if with inward convulsions; yet at thekla's voice the dull, glassy eyes would brighten, and he would wag his tail feebly as he lay on his side. at last he died; and thekla was not to be comforted, but sat apart and shed bitter tears. the only thing which cheered her was christopher's making a grave in the garden for nix, under the pear tree where i used to sit at embroidery in summer, as now she does. it was of no use to try to laugh her out of her distress. her lip quivered and her eyes filled with tears if any one attempted it. atlantis spoke seriously to her on the duty of a little girl of twelve beginning to put away childish things; and even the gentle mother tenderly remonstrated, and said one day, when dr. luther had asked her for her favourite, and had been answered by a burst of tears, "my child, if you mourn so for a dog, what will you do when real sorrows come?" but dr. luther seemed to understand thekla better than any of us, and to take her part. he said she was a child, and her childish sorrows were no more trifles to her than our sorrows are to us; that from heaven we might probably look on the fall of an empire as of less moment than we now thought the death of thekla's dog; yet that the angels who look down on us from heaven do not despise our little joys and sorrows, nor should we those of the little ones; or words to this effect. he has a strange sympathy with the hearts of children. thekla was so encouraged by his compassion, that she crept close to him and laid her hand in his, and said, with a look of wistful earnestness, "will nix rise again at the last day? will there be dogs in the other world?" many of us were appalled at such an irreverent idea; but dr. luther did not seem to think it irreverent. he said, "we know less of what that other world will be than this little one, or than that babe," he added, pointing to my little gretchen, "knows of the empires or powers of this world. but of this we are sure, the world to come will be no empty, lifeless waste. see how full and beautiful the lord god has made all things in this passing, perishing world of heaven and earth! how much more beautiful, then, will he make that eternal, incorruptible world! god will make new heavens and a new earth. all poisonous, and malicious, and hurtful creatures will be banished thence,--all that our sin has ruined. all creatures will not only be harmless, but lovely, and pleasant, and joyful, so that we might play with them. 'the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice's den.' why, then, should there not be little dogs in the new earth, whose skin might be fair as gold, and their hair as bright as precious stones?" certainly, in thekla's eyes, from that moment there has been no doctor of divinity like dr. luther. torgau, _november_ , . the plague is at wittemberg. we have all taken refuge here. the university is scattered, and many, also, of the augustinian monks. dr. luther remains in the convent at wittemberg. we have seen a copy of a letter of his, dated the th october, and addressed to the venerable father john lange, prior of erfurt monastery. "health. i have need of two secretaries or chancellors, since all day long i do nothing but write letters; and i know not whether, always writing, i may not sometimes repeat the same things. thou wilt see. "i am convent lecturer; reader at meals; i am desired to be daily parish preacher; i am director of studies, vicar (_i. e._, prior eleven times over), inspector of the fish-ponds at litzkau, advocate of the cause of the people of herzberg at torgau, lecturer on paul and on the psalms; besides what i have said already of my constant correspondence. i have rarely time to recite my canonical hours, to say nothing of my own particular temptations from the world, the flesh, and the devil. see what a man of leisure i am! "concerning brother john metzel i believe you have already received my opinion. i will see, however, what i can do. how can you think i can find room for your sardanapaluses and sybarites? if you have educated them ill, you must bear with those you have educated ill. i have enough useless brethren;--if, indeed, any are useless to a patient heart. i am persuaded that the useless may become more useful than those who are the most useful now. therefore bear with them for the time. "i think i have already written to you about the brethren you sent me. some i have sent to magister spangenburg, as they requested, to save their breathing this pestilential air. with two from cologne i felt such sympathy, and thought so much of their abilities, that i have retained them, although at much expense. twenty-two priests, forty-two youths, and in the university altogether forty-two persons are supported out of our poverty. but the lord will provide. "you say that yesterday you began to lecture on the sentences. to-morrow i begin the epistle to the galatians; although i fear that, with the plague among us as it is, i shall not be able to continue. the plague has taken away already two or three among us, but not all in one day; and the son of our neighbour faber, yesterday in health, to-day is dead; and another is infected. what shall i say? it is indeed here, and begins to rage with great cruelty and suddenness, especially among the young. you would persuade me and master bartholomew to take refuge with you. why should i flee? i hope the world would not collapse if brother martin fell. if the pestilence spreads, i will indeed disperse the monks throughout the land. as for me, i have been placed here. my obedience as a monk does not suffer me to fly; since what obedience required once, it demands still. not that i do not fear death--(i am not the apostle paul, but only the reader of the apostle paul)--but i hope the lord will deliver me from my fear. "farewell; and be mindful of us in this day of the visitation of the lord, to whom be glory." this letter has strengthened me and many. yes, if it had been our duty, i trust, like dr. luther, we should have had courage to remain. the courage of his act strengthens us; and also the confession of fear in his words. it does not seem a fear which hath torment, or which fetters his spirit. it does not even crush his cheerfulness. it is a natural fear of dying, which i also cannot overcome. from me, then, as surely from him, when god sees it time to die, he will doubtless remove the dread of death. this season of the pestilence recalls so much to me of what happened when the plague last visited us at eisenach! we have lost some since then,--if i ought to call eva and fritz lost. but how my life has been enriched! my husband, our little gretchen; and then so much outward prosperity! all that pressure of poverty and daily care entirely gone, and so much wherewith to help others! and yet, am i so entirely free from care as i ought to be? am i not even at times more burdened with it? when first i married, and had gottfried on whom to unburden every perplexity, and riches which seemed to me inexhaustible, instead of poverty, i thought i should never know care again. but is it so? have not the very things themselves, in their possession, become cares? when i hear of these dreadful wars with the turks, and of the insurrections and disquiets in various parts, and look round on our pleasant home, and gardens, and fields, i think how terrible it would be again to be plunged into poverty, or that gretchen ever should be; so that riches themselves become cares. it makes me think of what a good man once told me: that the word in the bible which is translated "rich," in speaking of abraham, in other places is translated "heavy;" so that instead of reading, "abraham left egypt _rich_ in cattle and silver and gold," we might read "_heavy_ in cattle, silver, and gold." yes, we are on a pilgrimage to the holy city; we are in flight from an evil world; and too often riches are weights which hinder our progress. i find it good, therefore, to be here in the small, humble house we have taken refuge in--gottfried, gretchen, and i. the servants are dispersed elsewhere; and it lightens my heart to feel how well we can do without luxuries which were beginning to seem like necessaries. dr. luther's words come to my mind; "the covetous enjoy what they have as little as what they have not. they cannot even rejoice in the sunshine. they think not what a noble gift the light is--what an inexpressibly great treasure the sun is, which shines freely on all the world." yes, god's common gifts are his most precious; and his most precious gifts--even life itself--have no root in _themselves_. not that they are _without_ root; they are _better_ rooted in the depths of his unchangeable love. it is well to be taught, by such a visitation even as this pestilence, the utter insecurity of everything here. "if the ship itself," as gottfried says, "is exposed to shipwreck, who, then, can secure the cargo?" henceforth let me be content with the only security dr. luther says god will give us,--the security of his presence and cure: "_i will never leave thee._" wittemberg, _june_, . we are at home once more; and, thank god, our two households are undiminished, save by one death--that of our youngest sister, the baby when we left eisenach. the professors and students also have returned. dr. luther, who remained here all the time, is preaching with more force and clearness. the town is greatly divided in opinion about him. dr. tetzel, the great papal commissioner for the sale of indulgences, has established his red cross, announcing the sale of pardons, for some months, at jüterbok and zerbst, not far from wittemberg. numbers of the townspeople, alarmed, i suppose, by the pestilence, into anxiety about their souls, have repaired to dr. tetzel, and returned with the purchased tickets of indulgence. i have always been perplexed as to what the indulgences really give. christopher has terrible stories about the money paid for them being spent by dr. tetzel and others on taverns and feasts; and gottfried says, "it is a bargain between the priests, who love money, and the people, who love sin." yesterday morning i saw one of the letters of indulgence for the first time. a neighbour of ours, the wife of a miller, whose weights have been a little suspected in the town, was in a state of great indignation when i went to purchase some flour of her. "see!" she said; "this dr. luther will be wiser than the pope himself. he has refused to admit my husband to the holy sacrament unless he repents and confesses to him, although he took his certificate in his hand." she gave it to me, and i read it. certainly, if the doctors of divinity disagree about the value of these indulgences, dr. tetzel has no ambiguity nor uncertainty in his language. "i," says the letter, "absolve thee from all the excesses, sins, and crimes which thou hast committed, however great and enormous they may be. i remit for thee the pains thou mightest have had to endure in purgatory. i restore thee to participation in the sacraments. i incorporate thee afresh into the communion of the church. i re-establish thee in the innocence and purity in which thou wast at the time of thy baptism. so that, at the moment of thy death, the gate by which souls pass into the place of torments will be shut upon thee; while, on the contrary, that which leads to the paradise of joy will be open unto thee. and if thou art not called on to die soon, this grace will remain unaltered for the time of thy latter end. "in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy ghost, "friar john tetzel, commissary, has signed it with his own hand." "to think," said my neighbour, "of the pope promising my franz admittance into paradise; and dr. luther will not even admit him to the altar of the parish church? and after spending such a sum on it! for the friar must surely have thought my husband better off than he is, or he would not have demanded gold of poor struggling people like us." "but if the angels at the gate of paradise should be of the same mind as dr. luther?" i suggested, "would it not be better to find that out here than there?" "it is impossible," she replied; "have we not the holy father's own word? and did we not pay a whole golden florin? it is impossible it can be in vain." "put the next florin in your scales instead of in dr. tetzel's chest, neighbour," said a student, laughing, as he heard her loud and angry words; "it may weigh heavier with your flour than against your sins." i left them to finish the discussion. gottfried says it is quite true that dr. luther in the confessional in the city churches has earnestly protested to many of his penitents against their trusting to these certificates, and has positively refused to suffer any to communicate, except on their confessing their sins, and promising to forsake them, whether provided with indulgences or not. in his sermon to the people last year on the ten commandments, he told them forgiveness was freely given to the penitent by god, and was not to be purchased at any price, least of all with money. wittemberg, _july_ . the whole town is in a ferment to-day, on account of dr. luther's sermon yesterday, preached before the elector in the castle church. the congregation was very large, composed of the court, students, and townspeople. not a child or ignorant peasant there but could understand the preacher's words. the elector had procured especial indulgences from the pope in aid of his church, but dr. luther made no exception to conciliate him. he said the holy scriptures nowhere demand of us any penalty or satisfaction for our sins. god gives and forgives freely without price, out of his unutterable grace; and lays on the forgiven no other duty than true repentance and sincere conversion of the heart, resolution to bear the cross of christ, and do all the good we can. he declared also that it would be better to give money freely towards the building of st. peter's church at rome, than to bargain with alms for indulgences; that it was more pleasing to god to give to the poor, than to buy these letters, which, he said, would at the utmost do nothing more for any man than remit mere ecclesiastical penances. as we returned from the church together, gottfried said,-- "the battle-cry is sounded then at last! the wolf has assailed dr. luther's own flock, and the shepherd is roused. the battle-cry is sounded, elsè, but the battle is scarcely begun." and when we described the sermon to our grandmother, she murmured,-- "it sounds to me, children, like an old story of my childhood. have i not heard such words half a century since in bohemia? and have i not seen the lips which spoke them silenced in flames and blood? neither dr. luther nor any of you know whither you are going. thank god, i am soon going to him who died for speaking just such words! thank god i hear them again before i die! i have doubted long about them and about everything; how could i dare to think a few proscribed men right against the whole church? but since these old words cannot be hushed, but rise from the dead again, i think there must be life in them; eternal life. children," she concluded, "tell me when dr. luther preaches again; i will hear him before i die, that i may tell your grandfather, when i meet him, the old truth is not dead. i think it would give him another joy, even before the throne of god." wittemberg, _august_. christopher has returned from jüterbok. he saw there a great pile of burning faggots, which dr. tetzel had caused to be kindled in the market-place, "to burn the heretics," he said. we laughed as he related this, and also at the furious threats and curses that had been launched at dr. luther from the pulpit in front of the iron money-chest. but our grandmother said, "it is no jest, children; they have done it, and they will do it again yet!" wittemberg, _november_ , ; all saints' day. yesterday evening, as i sat at the window with gottfried in the late twilight, hushing gretchen to sleep, we noticed dr. luther walking rapidly along the street towards the castle church. his step was firm and quick, and he seemed too full of thought to observe anything as he passed. there was something unusual in his bearing, which made my husband call my attention to him. his head was erect and slightly thrown back, as when he preaches. he had a large packet of papers in his hand, and although he was evidently absorbed with some purpose, he had more the air of a general moving to a battle-field than of a theologian buried in meditation. this morning, as we went to the early mass of the festival, we saw a great crowd gathered around the doors of the castle church; not a mob, however, but an eager throng of well-dressed men, professors, citizens, and students; those within the circle reading some writing which was posted on the door, whilst around, the crowd was broken into little knots, in eager but not loud debate. gottfried asked what had happened. "it is only some latin theses against the indulgences, by dr. luther," replied one of the students, "inviting a disputation on the subject." i was relieved to hear that nothing was the matter, and gottfried and i quietly proceeded to the service. "it is only an affair of the university," i said. "i was afraid it was some national disaster, an invasion of the turks, or some event in the elector's family." as we returned, however, the crowd had increased, and the debate seemed to be becoming warm among some of them. one of the students was translating the latin into german for the benefit of the unlearned, and we paused to listen. what he read seemed to me very true, but not at all remarkable. we had often heard dr. luther say and even preach similar things. at the moment we came up the words the student was reading were,-- "it is a great error for one to think to make satisfaction for his sins, in that god always forgives gratuitously and from his boundless grace, requiring nothing in return but holy living." this sentence i remember distinctly, because it was so much like what we had heard him preach. other propositions followed, such as that it was very doubtful if the indulgences could deliver souls from purgatory, and that it was better to give alms than to buy indulgences. but why these statements should collect such a crowd, and excite such intense interest, i could not quite understand, unless it was because they were in latin. one sentence, i observed, aroused very mingled feelings in the crowd. it was the declaration that the holy scriptures alone could settle any controversy, and that all the scholastic teachers together could not give authority to one doctrine. the students and many of the citizens received this announcement with enthusiastic applause, and some of the professors testified a quiet approval of it; but others of the doctors shook their heads, and a few retired at once, murmuring angrily as they went. at the close came a declaration by dr. luther, that "whatever some unenlightened and morbid people might say, he was no heretic." "why should dr. luther think it necessary to conclude with a declaration that he is no heretic?" i said to gottfried as we walked home. "can anything be more full of respect for the pope and the church than many of these theses are? and why should they excite so much attention? dr. luther says no more than so many of us think!" "true, elsè," replied gottfried, gravely; "but to know how to say what other people only think, is what makes men poets and sages; and to dare to say what others only dare to think, makes men martyrs or reformers, or both." _november_ . it is wonderful the stir these theses make. christopher cannot get them printed fast enough. both the latin and german printing-presses are engaged, for they have been translated, and demands come for them from every part of germany. dr. tetzel, they say, is furious, and many of the prelates are uneasy as to the result; the new bishop has dissuaded dr. luther from publishing an explanation of them. it is reported that the elector frederick it not quite pleased, fearing the effect on the new university, still in its infancy. students, however, are crowding to the town, and to dr. luther's lectures, more than ever. he is the hero of the youth of germany. but none are more enthusiastic about him than our grandmother. she insisted on being taken to church on all saints' day, and tottering up the aisle, took her place immediately under dr. luther's pulpit, facing the congregation. she had eyes or ears for none but him. when he came down the pulpit stairs she grasped his hand, and faltered out a broken blessing. and after she came home she sat a long time in silence, occasionally brushing away tears. when gottfried and i took leave for the night, she held one of our hands in each of hers, and said,-- "children! be braver than i have been; that man preaches the truth for which my husband died. god sends him to you. be faithful to him. take heed that you forsake him not. it is not given to every one as to me to have the light they forsook in youth restored to them in old age. to me his words are like voices from the dead. they are worth dying for." my mother is not so satisfied. she likes what dr. luther says, but she is afraid what aunt agnes might think of it. she thinks he speaks too violently sometimes. she does not like any one to be pained. she cannot herself much like the way they sell the indulgences, but she hopes dr. tetzel means well, and she has no doubt that the pope knows best; and she is convinced that in their hearts all good people mean the same, only she is afraid, in the heat of discussion, every one will go further than any one intends, and so there will be a great deal of bad feeling. she thought it was quite right of dr. luther quietly to admonish any of his penitents who were imagining they could be saved without repentance; but why he should excite all the town in this way by these theses she could not understand; especially on all saints' day, when so many strangers came from the country, and the holy relics were exhibited, and every one ought to be absorbed with their devotions. "ah, little mother," said my father, "women are too tender-hearted for ploughmen's work. you could never bear to break up the clods, and tear up all the pretty wild flowers. but when the harvest comes we will set you to bind up the sheaves, or to glean beside the reapers. no rough hands of men will do that so well as yours." and gottfried said his vow as doctor of divinity makes it as much dr. luther's plain duty to teach true divinity, as his priestly vows oblige him to guard his flock from error and sin. gottfried says we have fallen on stormy times. for him that may be best, and by his side all is well for me. besides, i am accustomed to rough paths. but when i look on our little tender gretchen, as her dimpled cheek rests flushed with sleep on her pillow, i cannot help wishing the battle might not begin in her time. dr. luther counted the cost before he fixed these theses to the church door. it was this which made him do it so secretly, without consulting any of his friends. he knew there was risk in it, and he nobly resolved not to involve any one else--elector, professor, or pastor--in the danger he incurred without hesitation for himself. _december_, . in one thing we all agreed, and that is in our delight in dr. luther's lectures on st. paul's epistle to the galatians. gottfried heard them and took notes, and reported them to us in my father's house. we gather around him, all of us, in the winter evenings, while he reads those inspiring words to us. never, i think, were words like them. yesterday he was reading to us, for the twentieth time, what dr. luther said on the words, "who loved me, and gave himself for me." "read with vehemency," he says, "those words 'me,' and 'for me.' print this 'me' in thy heart, not doubting that thou art of the number to whom this 'me' belongeth; also, that christ hath not only loved peter and paul, and given himself for them, but that the same grace also which is comprehended in this 'me,' as well pertaineth and cometh unto us as unto them. for as we cannot deny that we are all sinners, all lost; so we cannot deny that christ died for our sins. therefore, when i feel and confess myself to be a sinner, why should i not say that i am made righteous through the righteousness of christ, especially when i hear he loved me and gave himself for me?" and then my mother asked for the passages she most delights in: "o christ, i am thy sin, thy curse, thy wrath of god, thy hell; and contrariwise, thou art my righteousness, my blessing, my life, my grace of god, my heaven." and again, when he speaks of christ being "made a curse for us, the unspotted and undefiled lamb of god wrapped in our sins, god not laying our sins upon us, but upon his son, that he, bearing the punishment thereof, might be our peace, that by his stripes, we might be healed." and again:-- "sin is a mighty conqueror, which devoureth all mankind, learned and unlearned, holy, wise, and mighty men. this tyrant flieth upon christ, and will needs swallow him up as he doth all other. but he seeth not that christ is a person of invincible and everlasting righteousness. therefore in this combat sin must needs be vanquished and killed; and righteousness must overcome, live, and reign. so in christ all sin is vanquished, killed, and buried; and righteousness remaineth a conqueror, and reigneth for ever. "in like manner death, which is an omnipotent queen and empress of the whole world, killing kings, princes, and all men, doth mightily encounter with life, thinking utterly to overcome it and to swallow it up. but because the life was immortal, therefore when it was overcome, it nevertheless overcame, vanquishing and killing death. death, therefore, through christ, is vanquished and abolished, so that now it is but a painted death, which, robbed of its sting, can no more hurt those that believe in christ, who is become the death of death. "so the curse hath the like conflict with the blessing, and would condemn and bring it to nought; but it cannot. for the blessing is divine and everlasting, therefore the curse must needs give place. for if the blessing in christ could be overcome, then would god himself be overcome. but this is impossible; therefore christ, the power of god, righteousness, blessing, grace, and life, overcometh and destroyeth those monsters, sin, death, and the curse, without war and weapons, in this our body, so that they can no more hurt those that believe." such truths are indeed worth battling for; but who, save the devil, would war against them? i wonder what fritz would think of it all. wittemberg, _february_, . christopher returned yesterday evening from the market-place, where the students have been burning tetzel's theses, which he wrote in answer to dr. luther's. tetzel hides behind the papal authority, and accuses dr. luther of assailing the holy father himself. but dr. luther says nothing shall ever make him a heretic; that he will recognise the voice of the pope as the voice of christ himself. the students kindled this conflagration in the market-place entirely on their own responsibility. they are full of enthusiasm for dr. martin, and of indignation against tetzel and the dominicans. "who can doubt," said christopher, "how the conflict will end, between all learning and honesty and truth on the one side, and a few contemptible avaricious monks on the other?" and he proceeded to describe to us the conflagration and the sayings of the students with as much exultation as if it had been a victory over tetzel and the indulgence-mongers themselves. "but it seems to me," i said, "that dr. luther is not so much at ease about it as you are. i have noticed lately that he looks grave, and at times very sad. he does not seem to think the victory won." "young soldiers," said gottfried, "on the eve of their first battle may be as blithe as on the eve of a tourney. veterans are grave before the battle. their courage comes _with_ the conflict. it will be thus, i believe, with dr. luther. for surely the battle is coming. already some of his old friends fall off. they say the censor at rome, prierias, has condemned and written against his theses." "but," rejoined christopher, "they say also that pope leo praised dr. luther's genius, and said it was only the envy of the monks which found fault with him. dr. luther believes the pope only needs to learn the truth about these indulgence-mongers to disown them at once." "honest men believe all men honest until they are proved dishonest," said gottfried drily; "but the roman court is expensive and the indulgences are profitable." this morning our grandmother asked nervously what was the meaning of the shouting she had heard yesterday in the market-place, and the glare of fire she had seen, and the crackling? "only tetzel's lying theses," said christopher. she seemed relieved. "in my early days," she said, "i learned to listen too eagerly to sounds like that. but in those times they burned other things than books or papers in the market-places." "tetzel threatens to do so again," said christopher. "no doubt they will, if they can," she replied, and relapsed into silence. xv. fritz's story. augustinian convent, mainz, _november_, . seven years have passed since i have written anything in this old chronicle of mine, and as in the quiet of this convent once more i open it, the ink on the first pages is already brown with time; yet a strange familiar fragrance breathes from them, as of early spring flowers. my childhood comes back to me, with all its devout simplicity; my youth, with all its rich prospects and its buoyant, ardent, hopes. my childhood seems like one of those green quiet valleys in my native forests, like the valley of my native eisenach itself, when that one reach of the forest, and that one quiet town with its spires and church bells, and that one lowly home with its love, its cares, and its twilight talks in the lumber room, were all the world i could see. youth rises before me like that first journey through the forest to the university of erfurt, when the world opened to me like the plains from the breezy heights, a battle-field for glorious achievement, an unbounded ocean for adventure and discovery, a vast field for noble work. then came another brief interval, when once again the lowly home at eisenach became to me dearer and more than all the wide world beside, and all earth and all life seemed to grow sacred and to expand before me in the light of one pure, holy, loving maiden's heart. i have seen nothing so heaven-like since as she was. but then came the great crash which wrenched my life in twain, and made home and the world alike forbidden ground to me. at first, after that, for years i dared not think of eva. but since my pilgrimage to rome, i venture to cherish her memory again. i thank god every day that nothing can erase that image of purity and love from my heart. had it not been for that, and for the recollection of dr. luther's manly, honest piety, there are times when the very existence of truth and holiness on earth would have seemed inconceivable, such a chaos of corruption has the world appeared to me. how often has the little lowly hearth-fire, glowing from the windows of the old home, saved me from shipwreck, when "for many days neither sun nor stars appeared, and no small tempest lay on me." for i have lived during these years behind the veil of outward shows, a poor insignificant monk, before whom none thought it worth while to inconvenience themselves with masks or disguises. i have spent hour after hour, moreover, in the confessional. i have been in the sacristy before the mass, and at the convent feast after it. and i have spent months once and again at the heart of christendom, in rome itself, where the indulgences which are now stirring up all germany are manufactured, and where the money gained by the indulgences is spent; _not_ entirely on the building of st. peter's or in holy wars against the turks! thank god that a voice is raised at last against this crying, monstrous lie, the honest voice of dr. luther. it is ringing through all the land. i have just returned from a mission through germany, and i had opportunities of observing the effect of the theses. the first time i heard of them was from a sermon in a church of the dominicans in bavaria. the preacher spoke of dr. luther by name, and reviled the theses as directly inspired by the devil, declaring that their wretched author would have a place in hell lower than all the heretics, from simon magus downward. the congregation were roused and spoke of it as they dispersed. some piously wondered who this new heretic could be who was worse even than huss. others speculated what this new poisonous doctrine could be; and a great many bought a copy of the theses to see. in the augustinian convent that evening they formed the subject of warm debate. not a few of the monks triumphed in them as an effective blow against tetzel and the dominicans. a few rejoiced and said these were the words they had been longing to hear for years. many expressed wonder that people should make so much stir about them, since they said nothing more than all honest men in the land had always thought. a few nights afterwards i lodged at the house of ruprecht haller, a priest in a franconian village. a woman of quiet and modest appearance, young in form but worn and old in expression, with a subdued, broken-spirited bearing, was preparing our supper, and whilst she was serving the table i began to speak to the priest about the theses of dr. luther. he motioned to me to keep silence, and hastily turned the conversation. when we were left alone he explained his reasons. "i gave her the money for an indulgence letter last week, and she purchased one from one of dr. tetzel's company," he said; "and when she returned her heart seemed lighter than i have seen it for years, since god smote us for our sins, and little dietrich died. i would not have had her robbed of that little bit of comfort for the world, be it true or false." theirs was a sad story, common enough in every town and village as regarded the sin, and only uncommon as to the longing for better things which yet lingered in the hearts of the guilty. i suggested her returning to her kindred or entering a convent. "she has no kindred left that would receive her," he said; "and to send her to be scorned and disciplined by a community of nuns--never!" "but her soul!" i said, "and yours?" "the blessed lord received such," he answered almost fiercely, "before the pharisees." "such received him!" i said quietly, "but receiving him they went and sinned no more." "and when did god ever say it was sin for a priest to marry?" he asked; "not in the old testament, for the son of elkanah the priest and hannah ministered before the lord in the temple, as perhaps our little dietrich," he added in a low tone, "ministers before him in his temple now. and where in the new testament do you find it forbidden?" "the church forbids it," i said. "since when?" he asked. "the subject is too near my heart for me not to have searched to see. and five hundred years ago, i have read, before the days of hildebrand the pope, many a village pastor had his lawful wife, whom he loved as i love bertha; for god knows neither she nor i ever loved another." "does this satisfy her conscience?" i asked. "sometimes," he replied bitterly, "but only sometimes. oftener she lives as one under a curse, afraid to receive any good thing, and bowing to every sorrow as her bitter desert, and the foretaste of the terrible retribution to come." "whatever is not of faith is sin," i murmured. "but what will be the portion of those who call what god sanctions sin," he said, "and bring trouble and pollution into hearts as pure as hers?" the woman entered the room as he was speaking, and must have caught his words, for a deep crimson flushed her pale face. as she turned away, her whole frame quivered with a suppressed sob. but afterwards, when the priest left the room, she came up to me and said, looking with her sad, dark, lustreless eyes at me, "you were saying that some doubt the efficacy of these indulgences? but do _you_? i cannot trust _him_," she added softly, "he would be afraid to tell me if he thought so." i hesitated what to say. i could not tell an untruth; and before those searching, earnest eyes, any attempt at evasion would have been vain. "you do _not_ believe this letter can do anything for me," she said; "_nor do i_." and moving quietly to the hearth, she tore the indulgence into shreds, and threw it on the flames. "do not tell him this," she said; "he thinks it comforts me." i tried to say some words about repentance and forgiveness being free to all. "repentance for me," she said, "would be to leave him, would it not?" i could not deny it. "i will _never_ leave him," she replied, with a calmness which was more like principle than passion. "he has sacrificed life for me; but for me he might have been a great and honoured man. and do you think i would leave him to bear his blighted life alone?" ah! it was no dread of scorn or discipline which kept her from the convent. for some time i was silenced. i dared neither to reproach nor to comfort. at length i said, "life, whether joyful or sorrowful, is very short. holiness is infinitely better than happiness here, and holiness makes happiness in the life beyond. if you felt it would be for _his_ good, you would do anything, at any cost to yourself, would you not?" her eyes filled with tears. "you believe, then, that there is some good left, even in me!" she said. "for this may god bless you!" and silently she left the room. five hundred years ago these two lives might have been holy, honourable, and happy; and now!-- i left that house with a heavy heart, and a mind more bewildered than before. but that pale, worn face; those deep, sad, truthful eyes; and that brow, that might have been as pure as the brow of a st. agnes, have haunted me often since. and whenever i think of it, i say,-- "god be merciful to them and to me, sinners!" for had not my own good, pure, pious mother doubts and scruples almost as bitter? did not she also live too often as if under a curse? who or what has thrown this shadow on so many homes? who that knows the interior of many convents dares to say they are holier than homes? who that has lived with, or confessed many monks or nuns, can dare to say their hearts are more heavenly than those of husband or wife, father or mother? alas! the questions of that priest are nothing new to me. but i dare not entertain them. for if monastic life is a delusion, to what have i sacrificed hopes which were so absorbing, and might have been so pure? regrets are burdens a brave man must cast off. for my little life what does it matter? but to see vice shamefully reigning in the most sacred places, and scruples, perhaps false, staining the purest hearts, who can behold these things and not mourn? crimes a pagan would have abhorred atoned for by a few florins; sins which the holy scriptures scarcely seem to condemn, weighing on tender consciences like crimes! what will be the end of this chaos? * * * * * the next night i spent in the castle of an old knight in the thuringian forest, otto von gersdorf. he welcomed me very hospitably to his table, at which a stately old lady presided, his widowed sister. "what is all this talk about dr. luther and his theses?" he asked; "only, i suppose, some petty quarrel between the monks! and yet my nephew ulrich thinks there is no one on earth like this little brother martin. you good augustinians do not like the black friars to have all the profit; is that it?" he asked laughing. "that is not dr. luther's motive, at all events," i said; "i do not believe money is more to him than it is to the birds of the air." "no, brother," said the lady; "think of the beautiful words our chriemhild read us from his book on the lord's prayer." "yes; you, and ulrich, and chriemhild, and atlantis," rejoined the old knight, "you are all alike; the little friar has bewitched you all." the names of my sisters made my heart beat. "does the lady know chriemhild and atlantis cotta?" i asked. "come, nephew ulrich," said the knight to a young man who just then entered the hall from the chase; "tell this good brother all you know of fraülein chriemhild cotta." we were soon the best friends and long after the old knight and his sister had retired, ulrich von gersdorf and i sat up discoursing about dr. luther and his noble words and deeds, and of names dearer to us both even than his. "then you are fritz!" he said musingly after a a pause; "the fritz they all delight to talk of, and think no one can ever be equal to. you are the fritz that chriemhild says her mother always hoped would have wedded that angel maiden eva von schönberg, who is now a nun at nimptschen; whose hymn-book "theologia teutsch" she carried with her to the convent. i wonder you could have left her to become a monk," he continued; "your vocation must have been very strong." at that moment it certainly felt very weak. but i would not for the world have let him see this, and i said, with as steady a voice as i could command, "i believe it was god's will." "well," he continued, "it is good for any one to have seen her, and to carry that image of purity and piety with him into cloister or home. it is better than any painting of the saints, to have that angelic, child-like countenance, and that voice sweet as church music, in one's heart." "it is," i said, and i could not have said a word more. happily for me, he turned to another subject and expatiated for a long time on the beauty and goodness of his little chriemhild, who was to be his wife, he said, next year; whilst through my heart only two thoughts remained distinct, namely, what my mother had wished about eva and me, and that eva had taken my "theologia teutsch" into the convent with her. it took some days before i could remove that sweet, guileless, familiar face, to the saintly, unearthly height in my heart, where only it is safe for me to gaze on it. but i believe ulrich thought me a very sympathizing listener, for in about an hour he said,-- "you are a patient and good-natured monk, to listen thus to my romances. however, she is your sister, and i wish you would be at our wedding. but, at all events, it will be delightful to have news for chriemhild and all of them about fritz." i had intended to go on to wittemberg for a few days, but after that conversation i did not dare to do so at once. i returned to the university of tübingen, to quiet my mind a little with greek and hebrew, under the direction of the excellent reuchlin, it being the will of our vicar-general that i should study the languages. at tübingen i found dr. luther's theses the great topic of debate. men of learning rejoiced in the theses as an assault on barbarism and ignorance; men of straightforward integrity hailed them as a protest against a system of lies and imposture; men of piety gave thanks for them as a defence of holiness and truth. the students enthusiastically greeted dr. luther as the prince of the new age; the aged reuchlin and many of the professors recognized him as an assailant of old foes from a new point of attack. here i attended for some weeks the lectures of the young doctor, philip melancthon (then only twenty one, yet already a doctor for four years), until he was summoned to wittemberg, which he reached on the th of august, . on business of the order, i was deputed about the same time on a mission to the augustinian convent at wittemberg, so that i saw him arrive. the disappointment at his first appearance was great. could this little unpretending-looking youth be the great scholar reuchlin had recommended so warmly, and from whose abilities the elector frederick expected such great results for his new university? dr. luther was among the first to discover the treasure hidden in this insignificant frame. but his first latin harangue, four days after his arrival, won the admiration of all; and very soon his lecture-room was crowded. this was the event which absorbed wittemberg when first i saw it. the return to my old home was very strange to me. such a broad barrier of time and circumstance had grown up between me and those most familiar to me! elsè, matronly as she was, with her keys, her stores, her large household, and her two children, the baby fritz and gretchen, was in heart the very same to me as when we parted for my first term at erfurt, her honest, kind blue eyes, had the very same look. but around her was a whole new world of strangers, strange to me as her own new life, with whom i had no links whatever. with chriemhild and the younger children, the recollection of me as the elder brother seemed struggling with their reverence for the priest. christopher appeared to look on me with a mixture of pity, and respect, and perplexity, which prevented my having any intimate intercourse with him at all. only my mother seemed unchanged with regard to me, although much more aged and feeble. but in her affection there was a clinging tenderness which pierced my heart more than the bitterest reproaches. i felt by the silent watching of her eyes how she had missed me. my father was little altered, except that his schemes appeared to give him a new and placid satisfaction, in the very impossibility of their fulfilment, and that the relations between him and my grandmother were much more friendly. there was at first a little severity in our grandmother's manner to me, which wore off when we understood how much dr. luther's teaching had done for us both; and she never wearied of hearing what he had said and done at rome. the one who, i felt, would have been entirely the same, was gone for ever; and i could scarcely regret the absence which left that one image undimmed by the touch of time, and surrounded by no barriers of change. but of eva no one spoke to me, except little thekla, who sang to me over and over the latin hymns eva had taught her, and asked if she sang them at all in the same way. i told her yes. they were the same words, the same melodies, much of the same soft, reverent, innocent manner. but little thekla's voice was deep and powerful, and clear like a thrush's; and eva's used to be like the soft murmuring of a dove in the depth of some quiet wood--hardly a voice at all--an embodied prayer, as if you stood at the threshold of her heart, and heard the music of her happy, holy, child-like thoughts within. no, nothing could ever break the echo of that voice to me. but thekla and i became great friends. she had scarcely known me of old. we became friends as we were. there was nothing to recall, nothing to efface. and cousin eva had been to her as a star or angel in heaven, or as if she had been another child sent by god out of some beautiful old legend to be her friend. altogether, there was some pain in this visit to my old home. i had prayed so earnestly that the blank my departure had made might be filled up; yet now that i saw it filled, and the life of my beloved running its busy course, with no place in it for me, it left a dreary feeling of exile on my heart. if the dead could thus return, would they feel anything of this? not the holy dead, surely. they would rejoice that the sorrow, having wrought its work, should cease to be so bitter--that the blank should, not, indeed, be filled (no true love can replace another), but veiled and made fruitful, as time and nature veil all ruins. but the holy dead would revisit earth from a home, a father's house; and that the cloister is not, nor can ever be. yet i would gladly have remained at wittemberg. compared with wittemberg, all the world seemed asleep. there it was morning, and an atmosphere of hope and activity was around my heart. dr. luther was there; and, whether consciously or not, all who look for better days seem to fix their eyes on him. but i was sent to mainz. on my journey thither i went out of my way to take a new book of dr. luther's to my poor priest ruprecht in franconia. his village lay in the depths of a pine forest. the book was the exposition of the lord's prayer in german, for lay and unlearned people. the priest's house was empty; but i laid the book on a wooden seat in the porch, with my name written in it, and a few words of gratitude for his hospitality. and as i wound my way through the forest, i saw from a height on the opposite side of the valley a woman enter the porch, and stoop to pick up the book, and then stand reading it in the door-way. as i turned away, her figure still stood motionless in the arch of the porch, with the white leaves of the open book relieved against the shadow of the interior. i prayed that the words might be written on her heart. wonderful words of holy love and grace i knew were there, which would restore hope and purity to any heart on which they were written. and now i am placed in this augustinian monastery at mainz in the rhineland. this convent has its own peculiar traditions. here is a dungeon in which, not forty years ago (in ), died john of wesel--the old man who had dared to protest against indulgences, and to utter such truths as dr. luther is upholding now. an aged monk of this monastery, who was young when john of wesel died, remembers him, and has often spoken to me about him. the inquisitors instituted a process against him, which was earned on, like so many others, in the secret of the cloister. it was said that he made a general recantation, but that two accusations which were brought against him he did not attempt in his defence to deny. they were these: "that it is not his monastic life which saves any monk, but the grace of god;" and "that the same holy spirit who inspired the holy scriptures alone can interpret them with power to the heart." the inquisitors burned his books; at which, my informant said, the old man wept. "why," he said, "should men be so inflamed against him? there was so much in his books that was good, and must they be all burned for the little evil that was mixed with the good? surely this was man's judgment, not god's--not his who would have spared sodom at abraham's prayer, for but ten righteous, had they been found there. o god," he sighed, "must the good perish with the evil?" but the inquisitors were not to be moved. the books were condemned and ignominiously burned in public; the old man's name was branded with heresy; and he himself was silenced, and left in the convent prison to die. i asked the monk who told me of this, what were the especial heresies for which john of wesel was condemned. "heresies against the church, i believe," he replied. "i have heard him in his sermons declare that the church was becoming like what the jewish nation was in the days of our lord. he protested against the secular splendours of the priests and prelates--against the cold ceremonial into which he said the services had sunk, and the empty superstitions which were substituted for true piety of heart and life. he said that the salt had lost its savour; that many of the priests were thieves and robbers, and not shepherds; that the religion in fashion was little better than that of the pharisees who put our lord to death--a cloak for spiritual pride, and narrow, selfish bitterness. he declared that divine and ecclesiastical authority were of very different weight; that the outward professing church was to be distinguished from the true living church of christ; that the power of absolution given to the priest was sacramental, and not judicial. in a sermon at worms, i once heard him say he thought little of the pope, the church, or the councils, as a foundation to build our faith upon. 'christ alone,' he declared, 'i praise. may the word of christ dwell in us richly!'" "they were bold words," i remarked. "more than that," replied the aged monk; "john of wesel protested that what the bible did not hold as sin, neither could he; and he is even reported to have said, 'eat on fast days, if thou art hungry.'" "that is a concession many of the monks scarcely need," i observed. "his life, then, was not condemned, but only his doctrine." "i was sorry," the old monk resumed, "that it was necessary to condemn him; for from that time to this, i never have heard preaching that stirred the heart like his. when he ascended the pulpit, the church was thronged. the laity understood and listened to him as eagerly as the religious. it was a pity he was a heretic, for i do not ever expect to hear his like again." "you have never heard dr. luther preach?" i said. "doctor luther who wrote those theses they are talking so much of?" he asked. "do the people throng to hear his sermons, and hang on his words as if they were words of life?" "they do," i replied. "then," rejoined the old monk softly, "let dr. luther take care. that was the way with so many of the heretical preachers. with john of goch at mechlin, and john wesel whom they expelled from paris, i have heard it was just the same. but," he continued, "if dr. luther comes to mainz, i will certainly try to hear him. i should like to have my cold, dry, old heart moved like that again. often when i read the holy gospels john of wesel's words come back. brother, it was like the breath of life." the last man that ventured to say in the face of germany that man's word is not to be placed on an equality with god's, and that the bible is the only standard of truth, and the one rule of right and wrong--this is how he died! how will it be with the next--with the man that is proclaiming this in the face of the world now? the old monk turned back to me, after we had separated, and said, in a low voice-- "tell dr. luther to take warning by john of wesel. holy men and great preachers may so easily become heretics without knowing it. and yet," he added, "to preach such sermons as john of wesel, i am not sure it is not worth while to die in prison. i think i could be content to die, if i could _hear_ one such again! tell dr. luther to take care; but nevertheless, if he comes to mainz i will hear him." the good, then, in john of wesel's words, has not perished, in spite of the flames. xvi. elsè's story. wittemberg, _july_ , . many events have happened since last i wrote, both in this little world and in the large world outside. our gretchen has two little brothers, who are as ingenious in destruction, and seem to have as many designs against their own welfare, as their uncles had at their age, and seem likely to perplex gretchen, dearly as she loves them, much as christopher and pollux did me. chriemhild is married, and has gone to her home in the thuringian forest. atlantis is betrothed to conrad winkelried, a swiss student. pollux is gone to spain, on some mercantile affairs of the eisenach house of cotta, in which he is a partner; and fritz has been among us once more. that is now about two years since. he was certainly much graver than of old. indeed he often looked more than grave, as if some weight of sorrow rested on him. but with our mother and the children he was always cheerful. gretchen and uncle fritz formed the strongest mutual attachment, and to this day she often asks me when he will come back; and nothing delights her more than to sit on my knee before his picture, and hear me tell over and over again the stories of our old talks in the lumber-room at eisenach, or of the long days we used to spend in the pine forests, gathering wood for the winter fires. she thinks no festival could be so delightful as that; and her favourite amusement is to gather little bundles of willow or oak twigs, by the river elbe, or on the düben heath, and bring them home for household use. all the splendid puppets and toys her father brings her from nüremberg, or has sent from venice, do not give her half the pleasure that she finds in the heath, when he takes her there, and she returns with her little apron full of dry sticks, and her hands as brown and dirty as a little wood-cutter's, fancying she is doing what uncle fritz and i did when we were children, and being useful. last summer she was endowed with a special apple and pear tree of her own, and the fruit of these she stores with her little fagots to give at christmas to a poor old woman we know. gottfried and i want the children to learn early that pure joy of giving, and of doing kindnesses, which transmutes wealth from dust into true gold, and prevents these possessions which are such good servants from becoming our masters, and reducing us, as they seem to do so many wealthy people, into the mere slaves and hired guardians of _things_. i pray god often that the experience of poverty which i had for so many years may never be lost. it seems to me a gift god has given me, just as a course at the university is a gift. i have graduated in the school of poverty, and god grant i may never forget the secrets poverty taught me about the struggles and wants of the poor. the room in which i write now, with its carpets, pictures, and carved furniture, is very different from the dear bare old lumber-room where i began my chronicle; and the inlaid ebony and ivory cabinet on which my paper lies is a different desk from the piles of old books where i used to trace the first pages slowly in a childish hand. but the poor man's luxuries will always be the most precious to me. the warm sunbeams, shining through the translucent vine-leaves at the open window, are fairer than all the jewel-like venetian glass of the closed casements which are now dying crimson the pages of dr. luther's commentary, left open on the window-seat an hour since by gottfried. but how can i be writing so much about my own tiny world, when all the world around me is agitated by such great fears and hopes? at this moment, through the open window, i see dr. luther and dr. philip melancthon walking slowly up the street in close conversation. the hum of their voices reaches me here, although they are talking low. how different they look, and are; and yet what friends they have become! probably, in a great degree, because of the difference. the one looks like a veteran soldier, with his rock-like brow, his dark eyes, his vigorous form, and his firm step; the other, with his high, expanded forehead, his thin worn face, and his slight youthful frame, like a combination of a young student and an old philosopher. gottfried says god has given them to each other and to germany, blessing the church as he does the world by the union of opposites, rain and sunshine, heat and cold, sea and land, husband and wife. how those two great men (for gottfried says dr. melancthon is great, and i know that dr. luther is) love and reverence each other! dr. luther says he is but the forerunner, and melancthon the true prophet; that he is but the wood-cutter clearing the forest with rough blows, that dr. philip may sow the precious seed; and when he went to encounter the legate at augsburg, he wrote, that if philip lived it mattered little what became of him. but _we_ do not think so, nor does dr. melancthon. "no one," he says, "comes near dr. luther, and indeed the heart of the whole nation hangs on him. who stirs the heart of germany--of nobles, peasants, princes, women, children--as he does with his noble, faithful words?" twice during these last years we have been in the greatest anxiety about his safety,--once when he was summoned before the legate at augsburg, and once when he went to the great disputation with dr. eck at leipsic. but how great the difference between his purpose when he went to augsburg, and when he returned from leipsic! at augsburg he would have conceded anything, but the truth about the free justification of every sinner who believes in christ. he reverenced the pope; he would not for the world become a heretic! no name of opprobrium was so terrible to him as that. at leipsic he had learned to disbelieve that the pope had any authority to determine doctrine, and he boldly confessed that the hussites (men till now abhorred in saxony as natural enemies as well as deadly heretics) ought to be honoured for confessing sound truth. and from that time both dr. luther and melancthon have stood forth openly as the champions of the word of god against the papacy. now, however, a worse danger threatens him, even the bull of excommunication which they say is now being forged at rome, and which has never yet failed to crush where it has fallen. dr. luther has, indeed, taught us not to dread it as a spiritual weapon, but we fear its temporal effects, especially if followed by the ban of the empire. often, indeed, he talks of taking refuge in some other land; the good elector, even himself, has at times advised it, fearing no longer to be able to protect him. but god preserve him to germany! _june_ , . this evening, as we were sitting in my father's house, christopher brought us, damp from the press, a copy of dr. luther's appeal to his imperial majesty, and to the christian nobility of the german nation, on the reformation of christendom. presenting it to our grandmother, he said,-- "here, madam, is a weapon worthy of the bravest days of the schönbergs, mighty to the pulling down of strongholds." "ah," sighed our mother, "always wars and fightings! it is a pity the good work cannot be done more quietly." "ah, grandmother," said my father, "only see how her burgher life has destroyed the heroic spirit of her crusading ancestors. she thinks that the holy places are to be won back from the infidels without a blow, only by begging their pardon and kissing the hem of their garments." "you should hear catherine krapp, dr. melancthon's wife!" rejoined our mother; "she agrees with me that these are terrible times. she says she never sees the doctor go away without thinking he may be immured in some dreadful dungeon before they meet again." "but remember, dear mother," i said, "your fears when first dr. luther assailed tetzel and his indulgences three years ago! and who has gained the victory there? dr. martin is the admiration of all good men throughout germany; and poor tetzel, despised by his own party, rebuked by the legate, died, they say, of a broken heart just after the great leipsic disputation." "poor tetzel!" said my father, "his indulgences could not bind up a broken heart. i shall always love dr. luther for writing him a letter of comfort when he was dying, despised and forsaken even by his own party. i trust that he who can pardon has had mercy on his soul." "read to us, christopher," said our grandmother; "your mother would not shrink from any battle-field if there were wounds there which her hands could bind." "no," said gottfried, "the end of war is peace,--god's peace, based on his truth. blessed are those who in the struggle never lose sight of the end." christopher read, not without interruption. many things in the book were new and startling to most of us:-- "it is not rashly," dr. luther began, "that i, a man of the people, undertake to address your lord-ships. the wretchedness and oppression that now overwhelm all the states of christendom, and germany in particular, force from me a cry of distress. i am constrained to call for help; i must see whether god will not bestow his spirit on some man belonging to our country, and stretch forth his hand to our unhappy nation." dr. luther never seems to think _he_ is to do the great work. he speaks as if he were only fulfilling some plain humble duty, and calling other men to undertake the great achievement; and all the while that humble duty _is_ the great achievement, and he is doing it. dr. luther spoke of the wretchedness of italy, the unhappy land where the pope's throne is set, her ruined monasteries, her decayed cities, her corrupted people; and then he showed how roman avarice and pride were seeking to reduce germany to a state as enslaved. he appealed to the young emperor, charles, soon about to be crowned. he reminded all the rulers of their responsibilities. he declared that the papal territory, called the patrimony of st. peter, was the fruit of robbery. generously holding out his hand to the very outcasts his enemies had sought to insult him most grievously by comparing him with, he said,-- "it is time that we were considering the cause of the bohemians, and re-uniting ourselves to them." at these words my grandmother dropped her work, and fervently clasping her hands, leant forward, and fixing her eyes on christopher, drank in every word with intense eagerness. when he came to the denunciation of the begging friars, and the recommendation that the parish priests should marry, christopher interrupted himself by an enthusiastic "vivat." when, however, after a vivid picture of the oppressions and avarice of the legates, came the solemn abjuration:-- "hearest thou this, o pope, not most holy, but most sinful? may god from the heights of his heaven soon hurl thy throne into the abyss!" my mother turned pale, and crossed herself. what impressed me most was the plain declaration:-- "it has been alleged that the pope, the bishops, the priests, and the monks and nuns form the estate spiritual or ecclesiastical; while the princes, nobles, burgesses, and peasantry form the secular estate or laity. let no man, however, be alarmed at this. _all christians constitute the spiritual estate: and the only difference among them is that of the functions which they discharge._ we have all one baptism, one faith, and it is this which constitutes the spiritual man." if this is indeed true, how many of my old difficulties it removes with a stroke! all callings, then, may be religious callings; all men and women of a religious order. then my mother is truly and undoubtedly as much treading the way appointed her as aunt agnes; and the monastic life is only one among callings equally sacred. when i said this to my mother, she said, "i as religious a woman as aunt agnes! no, elsè! whatever dr. luther ventures to declare, he would not say that. i do sometimes have a hope that for his dear son's sake god hears even my poor feeble prayers; but to pray night and day, and abandon all for god, like my sister agnes, that is another thing altogether." but when, as we crossed the street to our home, i told gottfried how much those words of dr. luther had touched me, and asked if he really thought we in our secular calling were not only doing our work by a kind of indirect permission, but by a direct vocation from god, he replied,-- "my doubt, elsè, is whether the vocation which leads men to abandon home is from god at all; whether it has either his command or even his permission." but if gottfried is right, fritz has sacrificed his life to a delusion. how can i believe that? and yet if he could perceive it, how life might change for him! might he not even yet be restored to us? but i am dreaming. _october_ , . more and more burning words from dr. luther. to-day we have been reading his new book on the babylonish captivity. "god has said," he writes in this, "'whosoever shall believe and be baptized shall be saved.' on this promise, if we receive it with faith, hangs our whole salvation. if we believe, our heart is fortified by the divine promise; and although all should forsake the believer, this promise which he believes will never forsake him. with it he will resist the adversary who rushes upon his soul, and will have wherewithal to answer pitiless death, and even the judgment of god." and he says in another place, "the vow made at our baptism is sufficient of itself, and comprehends more than we can ever accomplish. hence all other vows may be abolished. whoever enters the priesthood or any religious order, let him well understand that the works of a monk or of a priest, however difficult they may be, differ in no respect in the sight of god from those of a countryman who tills the ground, or of a woman who conducts a household. god values all things by the standard of faith. and it often happens that the simple labour of a male or female servant is more agreeable to god than the fasts and the works of a monk, because in these faith is wanting." what a consecration this thought gives to my commonest duties! yes, when i am directing the maids in their work, or sharing gottfried's cares, or simply trying to brighten his home at the end of the busy day, or lulling my children to sleep, can i indeed be serving god as much as dr. luther at the altar or in his lecture-room? i also, then, have indeed my vocation direct from god. how could i ever have thought the mere publication of a book would have been an event to stir our hearts like the arrival of a friend! yet it is even thus with every one of those pamphlets of dr. luther's. they move the whole of our two households, from our grandmother to thekla, and even the little maid, to whom i read portions. she says, with tears, "if the mother and father could hear this in the forest!" students and burghers have not patience to wait till they reach home, but read the heart-stirring pages as they walk through the streets. and often an audience collects around some communicative reader, who cannot be content with keeping the free, liberating truths to himself. already, christopher says, four thousand copies of the "appeal to the nobility" are circulating through germany. i always thought before of books as the peculiar property of the learned. but dr. luther's books are a living voice,--a heart god has awakened and taught, speaking to countless hearts as a man talketh with his friend. i can indeed see now, with my father and christopher, that the printing press is a nobler weapon than even the spears and broadswords of our knightly bohemian ancestors. wittemberg, _december_ , . dr. luther has taken a great step to-day. he has publicly burned the decretals, with other ancient writings, on which the claims of the court of rome are founded, but which are now declared to be forgeries; and more than this, he has burnt the pope's bull of excommunication against himself. gottfried says that for centuries such a bonfire as this has not been seen. he thinks it means nothing less than an open and deliberate renunciation of the papal tyranny which for so many hundred years has held the whole of western christendom in bondage. he took our two boys to see it, that we may remind them of it in after years as the first great public act of freedom. early in the morning the town was astir. many of the burghers, professors, and students knew what was about to be done; for this was no deed of impetuous haste or angry vehemence. i dressed the children early, and we went to my father's house. wittemberg is as full now of people of various languages as the tower of babel must have been after the confusion of tongues. but never was this more manifest than to-day. flemish monks from the augustine cloisters at antwerp; dutch students from finland; swiss youths, with their erect forms and free mountain gait; knights from prussia and lithuania; strangers even from quite foreign lands,--all attracted hither by dr. luther's living words of truth, passed under our windows about nine o'clock this morning, in the direction of the elster gate, eagerly gesticulating and talking as they went. then thekla, atlantis, and i mounted to an upper room, and watched the smoke rising from the pile, until the glare of the conflagration burst through it, and stained with a faint red the pure daylight. soon afterwards the crowds began to return: but there seemed to me to be a gravity and solemnity in the manner of most, different from the eager haste with which they had gone forth. "they seem like men returning from some great church festival," i said. "or from lighting a signal-fire on the mountains, which shall awaken the whole land to freedom," said christopher, as they rejoined us. "or from binding themselves with a solemn oath to liberate their homes, like the three men at grütly," said conrad winkelried, the young swiss to whom atlantis is betrothed. "yes," said gottfried, "fires which may be the beacons of a world's deliverance, and may kindle the death-piles of those who dared to light them, are no mere students' bravado." "who did the deed, and what was burned?" i asked. "one of the masters of arts lighted the pile," my husband replied, "and then threw on it the decretals, the false epistles of st. clement, and other forgeries, which have propped up the edifice of lies for centuries. and when the flames which consumed them had done their work and died away, dr. luther himself, stepping forward, solemnly laid the pope's bull of excommunication on the fire, saying amidst the breathless silence, 'as thou hast troubled the lord's saints, may the eternal fire destroy thee.' not a word broke the silence until the last crackle and gleam of those symbolical flames had ceased, and then gravely but joyfully we all returned to our homes." "children," said our grandmother, "you have done well; yet you are not the first that have defied rome." "nor perhaps the last she will silence," said my husband. "but the last enemy will be destroyed at last; and meantime every martyr is a victor." xvii. eva's story. i have read the whole of the new testament through to sister beatrice and aunt agnes. strangely different auditors they were in powers of mind and in experience of life; yet both met, like so many in his days on earth, at the feet of jesus. "he would not have despised me, even me," sister beatrice would say. "poor, fond creature, half-witted or half-crazed they call me; but he would have welcomed me." "_does_ he not welcome you?" i said. "you think so? yes, i think--i am sure he does. my poor broken bits and remnants of sense and love, he will not despise them. he will take me as i am." one day when i had been reading to them the chapter in st. luke with the parables of the lost money, the lost sheep, and the prodigal, aunt agnes, resting her cheek on her thin hand, and fixing her large dark eyes on me, listened with intense expectation to the end; and then she said,-- "is that all, my child? begin the next chapter." i began about the rich man and the unjust steward; but before i had read many words,-- "that will do," she said in a disappointed tone. "it is another subject. then not one of the pharisees came after all! if i had been there among the hard, proud pharisees--as i might have been when he began, wondering, no doubt, that he could so forget himself as to eat with publicans and sinners--if i had been there, and had heard him speak thus, eva, i must have fallen at his feet and said, 'lord, i am a pharisee no more--i am the lost sheep, not one of the ninety and nine--the wandering child, not the elder brother. place me low, low among the publicans and sinners--lower than any; but only say thou camest also to seek me, even _me_.' and, child, he would not have sent me away! but, eva," she added, after a pause, wiping away the tears which ran slowly over her withered cheeks, "is it not said anywhere that one pharisee came to him." i looked, and could find it nowhere stated positively that one pharisee had abandoned his pride, and self-righteousness, and treasures of good works, for jesus. it seemed all on the side of the publicans. aunt agnes was at times distressed. "and yet," she said, "i _have_ come. i am no longer among those who think themselves righteous, and despise others. but i must come in behind all. it is i, not the woman who was a sinner, who am the miracle of his grace; for since no sin so keeps men from him as spiritual pride, there can be no sin so degrading in the sight of the pure and humble angels, or of the lord. but look again, eva! is there not one instance of such as i being saved?" i found the history of nicodemus, and we traced it through the gospel from the secret visit to the popular teacher at night, to the open confession of the rejected saviour before his enemies. aunt agnes thought this might be the example she sought, but she wished to be quite sure. "nicodemus came in humility, to learn," she said. "we never read that he despised others, or thought he could make himself a saint." at length we came to the acts of the apostles, and there, indeed, we found the history of one, "of the straitest sect a pharisee," who verily thought himself doing god service by persecuting the despised nazarenes to death. and from that time aunt agnes sought out and cherished every fragment of st. paul's history, and every sentence of his sermons and writings. she had found the example she sought of the "pharisee who was saved"--in him who obtained mercy, "that in him first god might show forth the riches of his long-suffering to those who thereafter, through his word, should believe." she determined to learn latin, that she might read these divine words for herself. it was affecting to see her sitting among the novices whom i taught, carefully spelling out the words, and repeating the declensions and conjugations. i had no such patient pupil; for although many were eager at first, not a few relaxed after a few weeks' toil, not finding the results very apparent, and said it would never sound so natural and true as when sister ave translated it for them in german. i wish some learned man would translate the bible into german. why does not some one think of it? there is one german translation from the latin, the prioress says, made about thirty or forty years ago; but it is very large and costly, and not in language that attracts simple people. i wish the pope would spend some of the money from the indulgences on a new translation of the new testament. i think it would please god much more than building st. peter's. perhaps, however, if people had the german new testament they would not buy the indulgences; for in all the gospels and epistles i cannot find one word about buying pardons; and, what is more strange, not a word about adoring the blessed virgin, or about nunneries or monasteries. i cannot see that the holy apostles founded one such community, or recommended any one to do so. indeed there is so much in the new testament, and in what i have read of the old, about not worshipping any one but god, that i have quite given up saying any prayers to the blessed mother, for many reasons. in the first place, i am much more sure that our lord can hear us always than his mother, because he so often says so. and i am much more sure he can help, because i know all power is given to him in heaven and in earth. and in the next place, if i were quite sure that the blessed virgin and the saints could hear me always, and could help or would intercede, i am sure also that no one among them--not the holy mother herself--is half so compassionate and full of love, or could understand us so well, as he who died for us. in the gospels, he was always more accessible than the disciples. st. peter might be impatient in the impetuosity of his zeal. loving indignation might overbalance the forbearance of st. john the beloved, and he might wish for fire from heaven on those who refused to receive his master. all the holy apostles rebuked the poor mothers who brought their children, and would have sent away the woman of canaan; but he tenderly took the little ones into his arms from the arms of the mothers the disciples had rebuked. his patience was never wearied; he never misunderstood or discouraged any one. therefore i pray to him and our father in heaven alone, and _through_ him alone. because if he is more pitiful to sinners than all the saints, which of all the saints can be beloved of god as he is, the well-beloved son? he seems everything, in every circumstance, we can ever want. higher mediation we cannot find, tenderer love we cannot crave. and very sure i am that the meek mother of the lord, the disciple whom jesus loved, the apostle who determined to know nothing among his converts save jesus christ, and him crucified, will not regret any homage transferred from them to him. nay, rather, if the blessed virgin, and the holy apostles have heard how, through all these years, such grievous and unjust things have been said of their lord; how his love has been misunderstood, and he has been represented as hard to be entreated,--he who entreats sinners to come and be forgiven;--has not this been enough to shadow their happiness, even in heaven? a nun has lately been transferred to our convent, who came originally from bohemia, where all her relatives had been slain for adhering to the party of john huss, the heretic. she is much older than i am, and she says she remembers well the name of my family, and that my great-uncle, aunt agnes' father, died a _heretic_! she cannot tell what the heresy was, but she believes it was something about the blessed sacrament and the authority of the pope. she had heard that otherwise he was a charitable and holy man. was my father, then, a hussite? i have found the end of the sentence he gave me as his dying legacy:--"god so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, _that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life_." and instead of being in a book not fit for christian children to read, as the priest who took it from me said, it is in the holy scriptures! can it be possible that the world has come round again to the state it was in when the rulers and priests put the saviour to death, and st. paul persecuted the disciples as heretics? nimptschen, . a wonderful book of dr. luther's appeared among us a few weeks since, on the babylonish captivity; and although it was taken from us by the authorities, as dangerous reading for nuns, this was not before many among us had become acquainted with its contents. and it has created a great ferment in the convent. some say they are words of impious blasphemy; some say they are words of living truth. he speaks of the forgiveness of sins being free; of the pope and many of the priests being the enemies of the truth of god; and of the life and calling of a monk or nun as in no way holier than that of any humble believing secular man or woman,--a nun no holier than a wife or a household servant! this many of the older nuns think plain blasphemy. aunt agnes says it is true, and more than true; for, from what i tell her, there can be no doubt that aunt cotta has been a lowlier and holier woman all her life than she can ever hope to be. and as to the bible precepts, they certainly seem far more adapted to people living in homes than to those secluded in convents. often when i am teaching the young novices the precepts in the epistles, they say,-- "but sister ave, find some precepts for us. these sayings are for children, and wives, and mothers, and brothers, and sisters; not for those who have neither home nor kindred on earth." then if i try to speak of loving god and the blessed saviour, some of them say,-- "but we cannot bathe his feet with tears, or anoint them with ointment, or bring him food, or stand by his cross, as the good women did of old. shut up here, away from every one, how can we show him that we love him?" and i can only say, "dear sisters, you are here now; therefore surely god will find some way for you to serve him here." but my heart aches for them, and i doubt no longer, i feel sure god can never have meant these young, joyous hearts to be cramped and imprisoned thus. sometimes i talk about it with aunt agnes; and we consider whether, if these vows are indeed irrevocable, and these children must never see their homes again, the convent could not one day be removed to some city where sick and suffering men and women toil and die; so that we might, at least, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit and minister to the sick and sorrowful. that would be life once more, instead of this monotonous routine, which is not so much death as mechanism--an inanimate existence which has never been life. _october_, . sister beatrice is very ill. aunt agnes has requested as an especial favour to be allowed to share the attending on her with me. never was gentler nurse or more grateful patient. it goes to my heart to see aunt agnes meekly learning from me how to render the little services required at the sick-bed. she smiles, and says her feeble blundering fingers had grown into mere machines for turning over the leaves of prayer-books, just as her heart was hardening into a machine for repeating prayers. nine of the young nuns, aunt agnes, sister beatrice, and i, have been drawn very closely together of late. among the noblest of these is catherine von bora, a young nun, about twenty years of age. there is such truth in her full dark eyes, which look so kindly and frankly into mine, and such character in the firmly-closed mouth. she declines learning latin, and has not much taste for learned books; but she has much clear practical good sense, and she, with many others, delights greatly in dr. luther's writings. they say they are not books; they are a living voice. every fragment of information i can give them about the doctor is eagerly received, and many rumours reach us of his influence in the world. when he was near nimptschen, two years ago, at the great leipsic disputation, we heard that the students were enthusiastic about him, and that the common people seemed to drink in his words almost as they did our lord's when he spoke upon earth; and what is more, that the lives of some men and women at the court have been entirely changed since they heard him. we were told he had been the means of wonderful conversions; but what was strange in these conversions was, that those so changed did not abandon their position in life, but only their sins, remaining where they were when god called them, and distinguished from others, not by veil or cowl, but by the light of holy works. on the other hand, many, especially among the older nuns, have received quite contrary impressions, and regard dr. luther as a heretic, worse than any who ever rent the church. these look very suspiciously on us, and subject us to many annoyances, hindering our conversing and reading together as much as possible. we do, indeed, many of us wonder that dr. luther should use such fierce and harsh words against the pope's servants. yet st. paul even "could have wished that those were cut off" that troubled his flock; and the very lips of divine love launched woes against hypocrites and false shepherds severer than any that the baptist or elijah ever uttered in their denunciations from the wilderness. it seems to me that the hearts which are tenderest towards the wandering sheep will ever be severest against the seducing shepherds who lead them astray. only we need always to remember that these very false shepherds themselves are, after all, but wretched lost sheep, driven hither and thither by the great robber of the fold! . just now the hearts of the little band among us who owe so much to dr. luther are lifted up night and day in prayer to god for him. he is soon to be on his way to the imperial diet at worms. he has the emperor's safe-conduct, but it is said this did not save john huss from the flames. in our prayers we are much aided by his own commentary on the book of psalms, which i have just received from uncle cotta'a printing-press. this is now sister beatrice's great treasure, as i sit by her bed-side and read it to her. he says that "the mere frigid use of the psalms in the canonical hours, though little understood, brought some sweetness of the breath of life to humble hearts of old, like the faint fragrance in the air not far from a bed of roses." he says, "all other books give us the words and deeds of the saints, but this gives us their inmost souls." he calls the psalter "the little bible." "there," he says, "you may look into the hearts of the saints as into paradise, or into the opened heavens, and see the fair flowers or the shining stars, as it were, of their affections springing or beaming up to god, in response to his benefits and blessings." _march_, . news had reached me to-day from wittemberg which makes me feel indeed that the days when people deem they do god service by persecuting those who love him, are too truly come back. thekla writes me that they have thrown fritz into the convent prison at mainz, for spreading dr. luther's doctrine among the monks. a few lines sent through a friendly monk have told them of this. she sent them on to me. "my beloved ones," he writes, "i am in the prison where, forty years ago, john of wesel died for the truth. i am ready to die if god wills it so. his truth is worth dying for, and his love will strengthen me. but if i can i will escape, for the truth is worth living for. if, however, you do not hear of me again, know that the truth i died for is christ's, and that the love which sustained me is christ himself. and likewise that to the last i pray for you all, and for eva; and tell her that the thought of her has helped me often to believe in goodness and truth, and that i look assuredly to meet her and all of you again.--friedrich schÖnberg cotta." in prison and in peril of life! death itself cannot, i know, more completely separate fritz and me than we are separated already. indeed, of the death even of one of us, i have often thought as bringing us a step nearer, rending one veil between us. yet, now that it seems so possible,--that perhaps it has already come,--i feel there was a kind of indefinable sweetness in being only on the same earth together, in treading the same pilgrim way. at least we could help each other by prayer; and now, if he is indeed treading the streets of the heavenly city, so high above, the world does seem darker. but, alas! he may _not_ be in the heavenly city, but in some cold earthly dungeon, suffering i know not what! i have read the words over and over, until i have almost lost their meaning. he has no morbid desire to die. he will escape if he can, and he is daring enough to accomplish much. and yet, if the danger were not great, he would not alarm aunt cotta with even the possibility of death. he always considered others so tenderly. he says i have helped him, _him_ who taught and helped me, a poor ignorant child, so much! yet i suppose it may be so. it teaches us so much to teach others. and we always understood each other so perfectly with so few words. i feel as if blindness had fallen on me, when i think of him now. my heart gropes about in the dark and cannot find him. but then i look up, my saviour, to thee. "to thee the night and the day are both alike." i dare not think he is suffering; it breaks my heart. i cannot rejoice as i would in thinking he may be in heaven. i know not what to ask, but thou art with him as with me. _keep him close under the shadow of thy wing._ there we are _safe_, and there we are _together_. and oh, comfort aunt cotta! she must need it sorely. fritz, then, like our little company at nimptschen, loves the words of dr. luther. when i think of this i rejoice almost more than i weep for him. these truths believed in our hearts seem to unite us more than prison or death can divide. when i think of this i can sing once more st. bernard's hymn:-- salve caput cruentatum. hail! thou head, so bruised and wounded, with the crown of thorns surrounded, smitten with the mocking reed, wounds which may not cease to bleed trickling faint and slow. hail! from whose most blessed brow none can wipe the blood-drops now; all the bloom of life has fled, mortal paleness there instead thou before whose presence dread angels trembling bow. all thy vigor and thy life fading in this bitter strife; death his stamp on thee has set, hollow and emaciate, faint and drooping there. thou this agony and scorn hast for me a sinner borne! me, unworthy, all for me! with those wounds of love on thee, glorious face, appear! yet in this thine agony, faithful shepherd, think of me from whose lips of love divine sweetest draughts of life are mine; purest honey flows; all unworthy of thy thought, guilty, yet reject me not; unto me thy head incline,-- let that dying head of thine in mine arms repose. let me true communion know with thee in thy sacred woe, counting all beside but dross, dying with thee on thy cross;-- 'neath it will i die! thanks to thee with every breath jesus, for thy bitter death; grant thy guilty one this prayer: when my dying hour is near, gracious god, be nigh! when my dying hour must be, be not absent then from me; in that dreadful hour, i pray, jesus come without delay; see, and set me free. when thou biddest me depart, whom i cleave to with my heart. lover of my soul, be near, with thy saving cross appear,-- show thyself to me! xviii. thekla's story. wittemberg, _april_ , . dr. luther is gone. we all feel like a family bereaved of our father. the professors and chief burghers, with numbers of the students, gathered around the door of the augustinian convent this morning to bid him farewell. gottfried reichenbach was near as he entered the carriage, and heard him say, as he turned to melacthon, in a faltering voice, "should i not return, and should my enemies put me to death, o my brother, cease not to teach and to abide steadfastly in the truth. labour in my place, for i shall not be able to labour myself. if you be spared it matters little that i perish." and so he drove off. and a few minutes after, we, who were waiting at the door, saw him pass. he did not forget to smile at elsè and her little ones, or to give a word of farewell to our dear blind father as he passed us. but there was a grave steadfastness in his countenance that made our hearts full of anxiety. as the usher with the imperial standard who preceded him, and then dr. luther's carriage, disappeared round a corner of the street, our grandmother, whose chair had been placed at the door that she might see him pass, murmured, as if to herself,-- "yes, it was with just such a look they went to the scaffold and the stake when i was young." i could see little, my eyes were so blinded with tears; and when our grandmother said this, i could bear it no longer, but ran up to my room, and here i have been ever since. my mother and elsè and all of them say i have no control over my feelings; and i am afraid i have not. but it seems to me as if every one i lean my heart on were always taken away. first, there was eva. she always understood me, helped me to understand myself; did not laugh at my perplexities as childish, did not think my over-eagerness was always heat of temper, but met my blundering efforts to do right. different as she was from me (different as an angel from poor bewildered blundering giant christopher in elsè's old legend), she always seemed come down to my level and see my difficulties from where i stood, and so helped me over them; whilst every one else sees them from above, and wonders any one can think such trifles troubles at all. not, indeed, that my dear mother and elsè are proud, or mean to look down on any one; but elsè is so unselfish, her whole life is so bound up in others, that she does not know what more wilful natures have to contend with. besides, she is now out of the immediate circle of our every-day life at home. then our mother is so gentle; she is frightened to think what sorrows life may bring me with the changes that must come, if little things give me such joy or grief now. i know she feels for me often more than she dares let me see; but she is always thinking of arming me for the trials she believes must come, by teaching me to be less vehement and passionate about trifles now. but i am afraid it is useless. i think every creature must suffer according to its nature; and if god has made our capacity for joy or sorrow deep, we cannot fill up the channel and say, "hitherto i will feel; so far, and no further." the _waters are there_,--soon they will recover for themselves the old choked-up courses; and meantime they will overflow. eva also used to say, "that our armour must grow with our growth, and our strength with the strength of our conflicts; and that there is only one shield which does this, the shield of faith,--a living, daily trust in a living, ever-present god." but eva went away. and then nix died. i suppose if i saw any child now mourning over a dog as i did over nix, i should wonder much as they all did at me then. but nix was not only a dog to me. he was eisenach and my childhood; and a whole world of love and dreams seemed to die for me with nix. to all the rest of the world i was a little vehement girl of fourteen; to nix i was mistress, protector, everything. it was weeks before i could bear to come in at the front door, where he used to watch for me with his wistful eyes, and bound with cries of joy to meet me. i used to creep in at the garden gate. and then nix's death was the first approach of death to me, and the dreadful power was no less a power because its shadow fell first for me on a faithful dog. i began dimly to feel that life, which before that seemed to be a mountain-path always mounting and mounting through golden mists to i know not what heights of beauty and joy, did not end on the heights, but in a dark unfathomed abyss, and that however dim its course might be, it has, alas, no mists, or uncertainty around the nature of its close, but ends certainly, obviously, and universally in death. i could not tell any one what i felt. i did not know myself. how can we understand a labyrinth until we are through it? i did not even know it was a labyrinth. i only knew that a light had passed away from everything, and a shadow had fallen in its place. then it was that dr. luther spoke to me of the other world, beyond death, which god would certainly make more full and beautiful than this;--the world on which the shadow of death can never come, because it lies in the eternal sunshine, on the other side of death, and all the shadows fall on this side. that was about the time of my first communion, and i saw much of dr. luther, and heard him preach. i did not say much to him, but he let down a light into my heart which, amidst all its wanderings and mistakes, will, i believe, never go out. he made me understand something of what our dear heavenly father is, and that willing but unequalled sufferer--that gracious saviour who gave himself for our sins, even for mine. and he made me feel that god would understand me better than any one, because love always understands, and the greatest love understands best, and god is love. elsè and i spoke a little about it sometimes, but not much. i am still a child to elsè and to all of them, being the youngest, and so much less self-controlled than i ought to be. fritz understood it best; at least, i could speak to him more freely,--i do not know why. perhaps some hearts are made to answer naturally to each other, just as some of the furniture always vibrates when i touch a particular string of the lute, while nothing else in the room seems to feel it. perhaps, too, sorrow deepens the heart wonderfully, and opens a channel into the depths of all other hearts. and i am sure fritz has known very deep sorrow. what, i do not exactly know; and i would not for the world try to find out. if there is a secret chamber in his heart, which he cannot bear to open to any one, when i think his thoughts are there, would i not turn aside my eyes and creep softly away, that he might never know i had found it out? the innermost sanctuary of his heart is, however, i know, not a chamber of darkness and death, but a holy place of daylight, for god is there. hours and hours fritz and i spoke of dr. luther, and what he had done for us both; more, perhaps, for fritz than even for me, because he had suffered more. it seems to me as if we and thousands besides in the world had been worshipping before an altar-picture of our saviour, which we had been told was painted by a great master after a heavenly pattern. but all we could see was a grim, hard, stern countenance of one sitting on a judgment throne; in his hands lightnings, and worse lightnings buried in the cloud of his severe and threatening brow. and then, suddenly we heard dr. luther's voice behind us saying, in his ringing, inspiring tones, "friends, what are you doing? that is not the right painting. these are only the boards which hide the master's picture." and so saying, he drew aside the terrible image on which we had been hopelessly gazing, vainly trying to read some traces of tenderness and beauty there. and all at once the real picture was revealed to us, the picture of the real christ, with the look on his glorious face which he had on the cross, when he said of his murderers, "father, forgive them; they know not what they do;" and to his mother, "woman, behold thy son?" or to the sinful woman who washed his feet, "go in peace." fritz and i also spoke very often of eva. at least, he liked me to speak of her while he listened. and i never weary of speaking of our eva. but then fritz went away. and now it is many weeks since we have heard from him; and the last tidings we had were that little note from the convent-prison of mainz! and now dr. luther is gone--gone to the stronghold of his enemies--gone, perhaps, as our grandmother says, to martyrdom! and who will keep that glorious revelation of the true, loving, pardoning god open for us,--with a steady hand keep open those false shutters, now that he is withdrawn? dr. melancthon may do as well for the learned, for the theologians; but who will replace dr. luther to _us_, to the people, to working men and eager youths, and to women and to children? who will make us feel as he does that religion is not a study, or a profession, or a system of doctrines, but life in god; that prayer is not, as he said, an ascension of the heart as a spiritual exercise into some vague airy heights, but the lifting of the heart _to god_, to a heart which meets us, cares for us, loves us inexpressibly? who will ever keep before us as he does the "our father," which makes all the rest of the lord's prayer and all prayer possible and helpful? no wonder that mothers held out their children to receive his blessing as he left us, and then went home weeping, whilst even strong men brushed away tears from their eyes. it is true, dr. bugenhagen, who has escaped from persecution in pomerania, preaches fervently in his pulpit; and archdeacon carlstadt is full of fire, and dr. melancthon full of light; and many good, wise men are left. but dr. luther seemed the heart and soul of all. others might say wiser things, and he might say many things others would be too wise to say, but it is through dr. luther's heart that god has revealed his heart and his word to thousands in our country, and no one can ever be to us what he is. day and night we pray for his safety. _april_ . christopher has returned from erfurt, where he heard dr. luther preach. he told us that in many places his progress was like that of a beloved prince through his dominions, of a prince who was going out to some great battle for his land. peasants blessed him; poor men and women thronged around him and entreated him not to trust his precious life among his enemies. one aged priest at nüremberg brought out to him a portrait of savonarola, the good priest whom the pope burned at florence not forty years ago. one aged widow came to him and said her parents had told her god would send a deliverer to break the yoke of rome, and she thanked god she saw him before she died. at erfurt sixty burghers and professors rode out some miles to escort him into the city. there, where he had relinquished all earthly prospects to beg bread as a monk through the streets, the streets were thronged with grateful men and women, who welcomed him as their liberator from falsehood and spiritual tyranny. christopher heard him preach in the church of the augustinian convent, where he had (as fritz told me) suffered such agonies of conflict. he stood there now an excommunicated man, threatened with death; but he stood there as victor, through christ, over the tyranny and lies of satan. he seemed entirely to forget his own danger in the joy of the eternal salvation he came to proclaim. not a word, christopher said, about himself, or the diet, or the pope's bull, or the emperor, but all about the way a sinner may be saved, and a believer may be joyful. "there are two kinds of works," he said; "external works, our own works. these are worth little. one man builds a church; another makes a pilgrimage to st. peter's; a third fasts, puts on the hood, goes barefoot. all these works are nothing, and will perish. now, i will tell you what is the true good work. _god hath raised again a man, the lord jesus christ, in order that he may crush death, destroy sin, shut the gates of hell. this is the work of salvation._ the devil believed he had the lord in his power when he beheld him between two thieves, suffering the most shameful martyrdom, accursed both of heaven and man. but god put forth his might, and annihilated death, sin, and hell. christ hath won the victory. this is the great news! and we are saved by his work, not by our works. the pope says something very different. i tell you the holy mother of god herself has been saved, not by her virginity, nor by her maternity, nor by her purity, nor by her works, but solely by means of faith, and by the work of god." as he spoke the gallery in which christopher stood listening cracked. many were greatly terrified, and even attempted to rush out. dr. luther stopped a moment, and then stretching out his hand said, in his clear, firm voice, "fear not, there is no danger. the devil would thus hinder the preaching of the gospel, but he will not succeed." then returning to his text, he said, "perhaps you will say to me, 'you speak to us much about faith, teach us how we may obtain it.' yes, indeed, that is what i desire to teach you. our lord jesus christ has said, '_peace be unto you. behold my hands._' and this is as if he said, 'o man, it is i alone who have taken away thy sins, and who have redeemed thee, and now _thou hast peace_, saith the lord.'" and he concluded,-- "since god has saved us, let us so order our works that he may take pleasure therein. art thou rich? let thy goods be serviceable to the poor. art thou poor? let thy services be of use to the rich. if thy labours are useless to all but thyself, the services thou pretendest to render to god are a mere lie." christopher left dr. luther at erfurt. he said many tried to persuade the doctor not to venture to worms; others reminded him of john huss, burned in spite of the safe-conduct. and as he went, in some places the papal excommunication was affixed on the walls before his eyes; but he said, "if i perish, the truth will not." and nothing moved him from his purpose. christopher was most deeply touched with that sermon. he said the text, "_peace be unto you; and when he had so said jesus showed unto them his hands and his side_," rang through his heart all the way home to wittemberg, through the forests and the plain. the pathos of the clear true voice we may never hear again writes them on his heart; and more than that. i trust the deeper pathos of the voice which uttered the cry of agony once on the cross for us,--the agony which won the peace. yes; when dr. luther speaks he makes us feel we have to do with persons, not with things,--with the devil who hates us, with god who loves us, with the saviour who died for us. it is not holiness only and justification, or sin and condemnation. it is we sinning and condemned, christ suffering for us, and god justifying and loving us. it is all i and thou. he brings us face to face with god, not merely sitting serene on a distant imperial throne, frowning in terrible majesty, or even smiling in gracious pity, but coming down to us close, seeking us, and caring, caring unutterably much, that we, even we, should be saved. i never knew, until dr. luther drove out of wittemberg, and the car with the cloth curtains to protect him from the weather, which the town had provided, passed out of sight, and i saw the tears gently flowing down my mother's face, how much she loved and honoured him. she seems almost as anxious about him as about fritz; and she did not reprove me that night when she came in and found me weeping by my bed. she only drew me to her and smoothed down my hair, and said, "poor little thekla! god will teach us both how to have none other gods but himself. he will do it very tenderly; but neither thy mother nor thy saviour can teach thee this lesson without many a bitter tear." xix. fritz's story. ebernburg, _april_ , . a chasm has opened between me and my monastic life. i have been in the prison, and in the prison have i received at last, in full, my emancipation. the ties i dreaded impatiently to break have been broken for me, and i am a monk no longer. i could not but speak to my brethren in the convent of the glad tidings which had brought me such joy. it is as impossible for christian life not to diffuse itself as that living water should not flow, or that flames should not rise. gradually a little band of christ's freedmen gathered around me. at first i did not speak to them much of dr. luther's writings. my purpose was to show them that dr. luther's doctrine was _not_ his own, but god's. but the time came when dr. luther's name was on every lip. the bull of excommunication went forth against him from the vatican. his name was branded as that of the vilest of heretics by every adherent of the pope. in many churches, especially those of the dominicans, the people were summoned by the great bells to a solemn service of anathema, where the whole of the priests, gathered at the altar in the darkened building, pronounced the terrible words of doom and then, flinging down their blazing torches extinguished them on the stone pavement, as hope, they said, was extinguished by the anathema for the soul of the accursed. at one of these services i was accidentally present. and mine was not the only heart which glowed with burning indignation to hear that worthy name linked with those of apostates and heretics, and held up to universal execration. but, perhaps, in no heart there did it enkindle such a fire as in mine. because i knew the source from which those curses came, how lightly, how carelessly those firebrands were flung; not fiercely, by the fanaticism of blinded consciences, but daintily and deliberately, by cruel, reckless hands, as a matter of diplomacy and policy, by those who cared themselves neither for god's curse nor his blessing. and i knew also the heart which they were meant to wound; how loyal, how tender, how true; how slowly, and with what pain dr. luther had learned to believe the idols of his youth a lie; with what a wrench, when the choice at last had to be made between the word of god and the voice of the church, he had clung to the bible, and let the hopes, and trust, and friendships of earlier days be torn from him; what anguish that separation still cost him; how willingly, as a humble little child, at the sacrifice of anything but truth and human souls, he would have flung himself again on the bosom of that church to which, in his fervent youth, he had offered up all that makes life dear. "_they curse, but bless thou._" the words came, unbidden into my heart, and almost unconsciously from my lips. around me i heard more than one "amen;" but at the same time i became aware that i was watched by malignant eyes. after the publication of the excommunication, they publicly burned the writings of dr. luther in the great square. mainz was the first city in germany where this indignity was offered him. mournfully i returned to my convent. in the cloisters of our order the opinions concerning luther are much divided. the writings of st. augustine have kept the truth alive in many hearts amongst us; and besides this, there is the natural bias to one of our own order, and the party opposition to the dominicans, tetzel and eck, dr. luther's enemies. probably there are few augustinian convents in which there are not two opposite parties in reference to dr. luther. in speaking of the great truths, of god freely justifying the sinner because christ died, (the judge acquitting because the judge himself had suffered for the guilty), i had endeavoured to trace them, as i have said, beyond all human words to their divine authority. but now to confess luther seemed to me to have become identical with confessing christ. it is the truth which is assailed in any age which tests our fidelity. it is to _confess_ we are called, not merely to _profess_. if i profess, with the loudest voice and the clearest exposition, every portion of the truth of god except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, i am not confessing christ, however boldly i may be professing christianity. where the battle rages the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battle-fields besides is mere flight and disgrace to him if he flinches at that one point. it seems to me also that, practically, the contest in every age of conflict ranges usually round the person of one faithful, godsent man, whom to follow loyally is fidelity to god. in the days of the first judaizing assault on the early church, that man was st. paul. in the great arian battle, this man was athanasius--"_athanasius contra mundum_." in our days, in our land, i believe it is luther; and to deny luther would be for me who learned the truth from his lips, to deny christ. luther, i believe, is the man whom god has given to his church in germany in this age. luther, therefore, i will follow--not as a perfect example, but as a god-appointed leader. men can never be neutral in great religious contests; and if, because of the little wrong in the right cause, or the little evil in the good man, we refuse to take the side of right, we are, by that very act, silently taking the side of wrong. when i came back to the convent i found the storm gathering. i was asked if i possessed any of dr. luther's writings. i confessed that i did. it was demanded that they should be given up. i said they could be taken from me, but i would not willingly give them up to destruction, because i believed they contained the truth of god. thus the matter ended until we had each retired to our cells for the night, when one of the older monks came to me and accused me of secretly spreading lutheran heresy among the brethren. i acknowledged i had diligently, but not secretly, done all i could to spread among the brethren the truths contained in dr. luther's books, although not in his words, but in st. paul's. a warm debate ensued, which ended in the monk angrily leaving the cell, saying that means would be found to prevent the further diffusion of this poison. the next day i was taken into the prison where john of wesel died; the heavy bolts were drawn upon me, and i was left in solitude. as they left me alone, the monk with whom i had the discussion of the previous night said. "in this chamber, not forty years since, a heretic such as martin luther died." the words were intended to produce wholesome fear: they acted as a bracing tonic. the spirit of the conqueror who had seemed to be defeated there, but now stood with the victorious palm before the lamb, seemed near me. the spirit of the truth for which he suffered was with me; and in the solitude of that prison i learned lessons years might not have taught me elsewhere. no one except those who have borne them knows how strong are the fetters which bind us to a false faith, learned at our mother's knee, and riveted on us by the sacrifices of years. perhaps i should never have been able to break them. for me, as for thousands of others, they were rudely broken by hostile hands. but the blows which broke them were the accolade which smote me from a monk into a knight and soldier of my lord. yes; there i learned that these vows which have bound me for so many years are bonds, not to god, but to a lying tyranny. the only true vows, as dr. luther says, are the vows of our baptism--to renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil, as soldiers of christ. the only divine order is the common order of christianity. all other orders are disorder; not confederations within the church, but conspiracies against it. if, in an army, the troops choose to abandon the commander's arrangement, and range themselves, by arbitrary rules, in peculiar uniforms, around self-elected leaders, they would not be soldiers--they would be mutineers. god's order is, i think, the state to embrace all men, the church to embrace all christian men; and the kernel of the state and the type of the church is the family. he creates us to be infants, children--sons, daughters--husband, wife--father, mother. he says, obey your parents, love your wife, reverence your husband, love your children. as children, let the lord at nazareth be your model; as married, let the lord, who loved the church better than life, be your type; as parents, let the heavenly father be your guide. and if we, abandoning every holy name of family love he has sanctioned, and every lowly duty he has enjoined, choose to band ourselves anew into isolated conglomerations of men or women, connected only by a common name and dress, we are not only amiable enthusiasts--we are rebels against the divine order of humanity. god, indeed, may call some especially to forsake father and mother, and wife and children, and all things for his dearer love. but when he calls to such destinies, it is by the plain voice of providence, or by the bitter call of persecution; and then the martyr's or the apostle's solitary path is as much the lowly, simple path of obedience as the mother's or the child's. the crown of the martyr is consecrated by the same holy oil which anoints the head of the bride, the mother, or the child,--the consecration of love and of obedience. there is none other. all that is not duty is sin; all that is not obedience is disobedience; all that is not of love is of self; and self crowned with thorns in a cloister is as selfish as self crowned with ivy at a revel. therefore i abandon cowl and cloister for ever. i am no more brother sebastian, of the order of the eremites of st. augustine. i am friedrich cotta, margaret cotta's son, elsè and thekla's brother fritz. i am no more a monk. i am a christian--i am no more a vowed augustinian. i am a baptized christian, dedicated to christ from the arms of my mother, united to him by the faith of my manhood. henceforth i will order my life by no routine of ordinances imposed by the will of a dead man hundreds of years since. but day by day i will seek to yield myself, body, soul, and spirit to the living will of my almighty, loving god, saying to him morning by morning, "give me this day my daily bread. appoint to me this day my daily task." and he will never fail to hear, however often i may fail to ask. i had abundance of time for those thoughts in my prison; for during the three weeks i lay there i had, with the exception of the bread and water which were silently laid inside the door every morning, but two visits. and these were from my friend the aged monk who had first told me about john of wesel. the first time he came (he said) to persuade me to recant. but whatever he intended, he said little about recantation--much more about his own weakness, which hindered him from confessing the same truth. the second time he brought me a disguise, and told me he had provided the means for my escape that very night. when, therefore, i heard the echoes of the heavy bolts of the great doors die away through the long stone corridors, and listened till the last tramp of feet ceased, and door after door of the various cells was closed, and every sound was still throughout the building, i laid aside my monk's cowl and frock, and put on the burgher dress provided for me. to me it was a glad and solemn ceremony, and, alone in my prison, i prostrated myself on the stone floor, and thanked him who, by his redeeming death and the emancipating word of his free spirit, had made me a free man, nay, infinitely better, _his freedman_. the bodily freedom to which i looked forward was to me a light boon indeed, in comparison with the liberty of heart already mine. the putting on this common garb of secular life was to me like a solemn investiture with the freedom of the city and the empire of god. henceforth i was not to be a member of a narrow, separated class, but of the common family; no more to freeze alone on a height, but to tread the lowly path of common duty; to help my brethren, not as men at a sumptuous table throw crumbs to beggars and dogs, but to live amongst them--to share my bread of life with them; no longer as the forerunner in the wilderness, but, like the master, in the streets, and highways, and homes of men; assuming no nobler name than man created in the image of god, born in the image of adam; aiming at no loftier title than christian, redeemed by the blood of christ, and created anew, to be conformed to his glorious image. yes, as the symbol of a freedman, as the uniform of a soldier, as the armour of a sworn knight, at once freeman and servant, was that lowly burgher's dress to me; and with a joyful heart, when the aged monk came to me again, i stepped after him, leaving my monk's frock lying in the corner of the cell, like the husk of that old lifeless life. in vain did i endeavour to persuade my liberator to accompany me in my flight. "the world would be a prison to me, brother," he said with a sad smile. "all i loved in it are dead, and what could i do there, with the body of an old man and the helpless inexperience of a child? fear not for me," he added; "i also shall, i trust, one day dwell in a home; but not on earth!" and so we parted, he returning to the convent, and i taking my way, by river and forest, to this castle of the noble knight franz von sickingen, on a steep height at the angle formed by the junction of two rivers. my silent weeks of imprisonment had been weeks of busy life in the world outside. when i reached this castle of ebernburg, i found the whole of its inhabitants in a ferment about the summoning of dr. luther to worms. his name, and my recent imprisonment for his faith, were a sufficient passport to the hospitality of the castle, and i was welcomed most cordially. it was a great contrast to the monotonous routine of the convent and the stillness of the prison. all was life and stir; eager debates as to what it would be best to do for dr. luther; incessant coming and going of messengers on horse and foot between ebernburg and worms, where the diet is already sitting, and where the good knight franz spends much of his time in attendance on the emperor. ulrich von hutton is also here, from time to time, vehement in his condemnation of the fanaticism of monks and the lukewarmness of princes; and dr. bucer, a disciple of dr. luther's, set free from the bondage of rome by his healthful words at the great conference of the augustinians at heidelberg. _april_ , . the events of an age seem to have been crowded into the last month. a few days after i wrote last, it was decided to send a deputation to dr. luther, who was then rapidly approaching worms, entreating him not to venture into the city, but to turn aside to ebernburg. the emperor's confessor, glapio, had persuaded the knight von sickingen and the chaplain bucer, that all might easily be arranged, if dr. luther only avoided the fatal step of appearing at the diet. a deputation of horsemen was therefore sent to intercept the doctor on his way, and to conduct him, if he would consent, to ebernburg, the "refuge and hostelry of righteousness," as it has been termed. i accompanied the little band, of which bucer was to be chief spokesman. i did not think dr. luther would come. unlike the rest of the party, i had known him not only when he stepped on the great stage of the world as the antagonist of falsehood, but as the simple, straightforward, obscure monk. and i knew that the step which to others seemed so great, leading him from safe obscurity into perilous pre-eminence before the eyes of all christendom, was to him no great momentary effort, but simply one little step in the path of obedience and lowly duty which he had been endeavouring to tread so many years. but i feared. i distrusted glapio, and believed that all this earnestness on the part of the papal party to turn the doctor aside was not for his sake, but for their own. i needed not, at least, have distrusted dr. luther. bucer entreated him with the eloquence of affectionate solicitude; his faithful friends and fellow-travellers, jonas, amsdorf, and schurff, wavered, but dr. luther did not hesitate an instant. he was in the path of obedience. the next step was as unquestionable and essential as all the rest, although, as he had once said, "it led through flames which extended from worms to wittemberg, and raged up to heaven." he did not, however, use any of these forcible illustrations now, natural as they were to him. he simply said,-- "i continue my journey. if the emperor's confessor has anything to say to me, he can say it at worms. _i will go to the place to which i have been summoned._" and he went on, leaving the friendly deputation to return to ebernburg. i did not leave him. as we went on the way, some of those who had accompanied him told me through what fervent greetings and against what vain entreaties of fearful affection he had pursued his way thus far; how many had warned him that he was going to the stake, and had wept that they should see his face no more; how, through much bodily weakness and suffering, through acclamations and tears, he had passed on simply and steadfastly, blessing little children in the schools he visited, and telling them to search the scriptures; comforting the timid and aged, stirring up the hearts of all to faith and prayer, and by his courage and trust more than once turning enemies into friends. "are you the man who is to overturn the popedom?" said a soldier, accosting him rather contemptuously at a halting-place; "how will you accomplish that?" "i rely on almighty god," he replied, "whose orders i have." and the soldier replied reverently,-- "i serve the emperor charles; your master is greater than mine." one more assault awaited dr. luther before he reached his destination. it came through friendly lips. when he arrived near worms, a messenger came riding towards us from his faithful friend spalatin, the elector's chaplain, and implored him on no account to think of entering the city. the doctor's old fervour of expression returned at such a temptation meeting him so near the goal. "go tell your master," he said, "that if there were at worms as many devils as there are tiles on the roofs, yet would i go in." and he went in. a hundred cavaliers met him near the gates, and escorted him within the city. two thousand people were eagerly awaiting him, and pressed to see him as he passed through the streets. not all friends. fanatical spaniards were among them, who had torn his books in pieces from the book-stalls, and crossed themselves when they looked at him, as if he had been the devil; baffled partisans of the pope: and on the other hand, timid christians who hoped all from his courage; men who had waited long for this deliverence, had received life from his words, and had kept his portrait in their homes and hearts encircled like that of a canonized saint with a glory. and through the crowd he passed, the only man, perhaps, in it who did not see dr. luther through a mist of hatred or of glory, but felt himself a solitary, feeble, helpless man, leaning only, yet resting securely, on the arm of almighty strength. those who knew him best perhaps wondered at him most during those days which followed. not at his courage--that we had expected--but at his calmness and moderation. it was this which seemed to me most surely the seal of god on that fervent impetuous nature, stamping the work and the man as of god. we none of us know how he would have answered before that august assembly. at his first appearance some of us feared he might have been too vehement. the elector frederick could not have been more moderate and calm. when asked whether he would retract his books, i think there were few among us who were not surprised at the noble self-restraint of his reply. he asked for time. "most gracious emperor, gracious princes and lords," he said, "with regard to the first accusation, i acknowledge the books enumerated to have been from me. i cannot disown them. as regards the second, seeing that is a question of the faith and the salvation of souls, and of god's word, the most precious treasure in heaven or earth, i should act rashly were i to reply hastily. i might affirm less than the case requires, or more than truth demands, and thus offend against that word of christ, 'whosoever shall deny me before men, him will i also deny before my father who is in heaven.' wherefore i beseech your imperial majesty, with all submission, to allow me time that i may reply without doing prejudice to the word of god." he could afford to be thought for the time what many of his enemies tauntingly declared him, a coward, brave in the cell, but appalled when he came to face the world. during the rest of that day he was full of joy; "like a child," said some, "who knows not what is before him;" "like a veteran," said others, "who has prepared everything for the battle;" like both, i thought, since the strength of the veteran in the battles of god is the strength of the child following his father's eye, and trusting on his father's arm. a conflict awaited him afterwards in the course of the night, which one of us witnessed, and which made him who witnessed it feel no wonder that the imperial presence had no terrors for luther on the morrow. alone that night our leader fought the fight to which all other combats were but as a holiday tournament. prostrate on the ground, with sobs and bitter tears, he prayed,-- "almighty, everlasting god, how terrible this world is! how it would open its jaws to devour me, and how weak is my trust in thee! the flesh is weak, and the devil is strong! o thou my god, help me against all the wisdom of this world. do thou the work. it is for thee alone to do it; for the work is thine, not mine. i have nothing to bring me here. i have no controversy to maintain, not i, with the great ones of the earth. i too would that my days should glide along, happy and calm. but the cause is thine. it is righteous, it is eternal. o lord, help me; thou that art faithful, thou that art unchangeable. it is not in any man i trust. that were vain indeed. all that is in man gives way; all that comes from man faileth. o god, my god, dost thou not hear me? art thou dead? no; thou canst not die! thou art but hiding thyself. thou hast chosen me for this work. i know it. oh, then, arise and work. be thou on my side, for the sake of thy beloved son jesus christ, who is my defence, my shield and my fortress. "o lord, my god, where art thou? come, come; i am ready--ready to forsake life for thy truth, patient as a lamb. for it is a righteous cause, and it is thine own. i will not depart from thee, now nor through eternity. and although the world should be full of demons; although my body, which, nevertheless, is the work of thine hands, should be doomed to bite the dust, to be stretched upon the rack, cut into pieces, consumed to ashes, the soul is thine. yes; for this i have the assurance of thy word. my soul is thine. it will abide near thee throughout the endless ages. amen. o god, help thou me! amen!" ah, how little those who follow know the agony it costs to take the first step, to venture on the perilous ground no human soul around has tried! insignificant indeed the terrors of the empire to one who had seen the terrors of the almighty. petty indeed are the assaults of flesh and blood to him who has withstood principalities and powers, and the hosts of the prince of darkness. at four o'clock the marshal of the empire came to lead him to his trial. but his real hour of trial was over, and calm and joyful dr. luther passed through the crowded streets to the imperial presence. as he drew near the door, the veteran general freundsberg, touching his shoulder, said-- "little monk, you have before you an encounter such as neither i nor any other captains have seen the like of even in our bloodiest campaigns. but if your cause be just, and if you know it to be so, go forward in the name of god, and fear nothing. god will not forsake you." friendly heart! he knew not that our martin luther was coming _from_ his battle-field, and was simply going as a conqueror to declare before men the victory he had won from mightier foes. and so at last he stood, the monk, the peasant's son, before all the princes of the empire, the kingliest heart among them all, crowned with a majesty which was incorruptible, because invisible to worldly eyes; one against thousands who were bent on his destruction; one in front of thousands who leant on his fidelity; erect because he rested on that unseen arm above. the words he spoke that day are ringing through all germany. the closing sentence will never be forgotten-- "_here i stand. i cannot do otherwise. god help me. amen._" to him these deeds of heroism are acts of simple obedience; every step inevitable, because every step is duty. in this path he leans on god's help absolutely and only. and all faithful hearts throughout the land respond to his amen. on the other hand, many of the polished courtiers and subtle roman diplomatists saw no eloquence in his words, words which stirred every true heart to its depths. "that man," said they, "will never convince us." how should he? his arguments were not in their language, nor addressed to them, but to true and honest hearts; and to such they spoke. to men with whom eloquence means elaborate fancies, decorating corruption or veiling emptiness, what could st. paul seem but a "babbler?" all men of earnest purpose acknowledged their force;--enemies, by indignant clamour that he should be silenced: friends, by wondering gratitude to god who had stood by him. it was nearly dark when the diet broke up. as dr. luther came out, escorted by the imperial officers, a panic spread through the crowd collected in the street, and from every lip to lip was heard the cry,-- "they are taking him to prison." "they are leading me to my hotel," said the calm voice of him whom this day has made the great man of germany. and the tumult subsided. ebernburg, _june_, . dr. luther has disappeared! not one that i have seen knows at this moment where they have taken him, whether he is in the hands of friend or foe, whether even he is still on earth! we ought to have heard of his arrival at wittemberg many days since. but no inquiries can trace him beyond the village of mora in the thuringian forest. there he went from eisenach on his way back to wittemberg, to visit his aged grandmother and some of his father's relations, peasant farmers who live on the clearings of the forest. in his grandmother's lowly home he passed the night, and took leave of her the next morning; and no one has heard of him since. we are not without hope that he is in the hands of friends; yet fears will mingle with these hopes. his enemies are so many and so bitter; and no means would seem, to many of them, unworthy, to rid the world of such a heretic. while he yet remained at worms the romans strenuously insisted that his obstinacy had made the safe-conduct invalid; some even of the german princes urged that he should be seized; and it was only by the urgent remonstrances of others, who protested that they would never suffer such a blot on german honour, that he was saved. at the same time the most insidious efforts were made to persuade him to retreat, or to resign his safe-conduct in order to show his willingness to abide by the issue of a fair discussion. this last effort, appealing to dr. luther's confidence in the truth for which he was ready to die, had all but prevailed with him. but a knight who was present when it was made, seeing through the treachery, fiercely ejected the priest who proposed it from the house. yet through all assaults, insidious or open, dr. luther remained calm and unmoved, moved by no threats, ready to listen to any fair proposition. among all the polished courtiers and proud princes and prelates, he seemed to me to stand like an ambassador from an imperial court among the petty dignitaries of some petty province. his manners had the dignity of one who has been accustomed to a higher presence than any around him, giving to every one the honour due to him, indifferent to all personal slights, but inflexible on every point that concerned the honour of his sovereign. those of us who had known him in earlier days saw in him all the simplicity, the deep earnestness, the child-like delight in simple pleasures we had known in him of old. it was our old friend martin luther, but it seemed as if our luther had come back to us from a residence in heaven, such a peace and majesty dwelt in all he said. one incident especially struck me. when the glass he was about to drink of at the feast given by the archbishop of treves, one of the papal party, shivered in his hand as he signed the cross over it, and his friends exclaimed "poison!" he (so ready usually to see spiritual agency in all things) quietly observed that "the glass had doubtless broken on account of its having been plunged too soon into cold water when it was washed." his courage was no effort of a strong nature. he simply trusted in god, and really was afraid of nothing. and now he is gone. whether among friends or foes, in a hospital refuge such as this, or in a hopeless secret dungeon, to us for the time at least he is dead. no word of sympathy or counsel passes between us. the voice which all germany hushed its breath to hear is silenced. under the excommunication of the pope, under the ban of the empire, branded as a heretic, sentenced as a traitor, reviled by the emperor's own edict as "a fool, a blasphemer, a devil clothed in a monk's cowl," it is made treason to give him food or shelter, and a virtue to deliver him to death. and to all this, if he is living, he can utter no word of reply. meantime, on the other hand, every word of his is treasured up and clothed with the sacred pathos of the dying words of a father. the noble letter which he wrote to the nobles describing his appearance before the diet is treasured in every home. yet some among us derive not a little hope from the last letter he wrote, which was to lucas cranach, from frankfort. in it he says,-- "the jews may sing once more their 'io! io!' but to us also the easter-day will come, and then will we sing alleluia. a little while we must be silent and suffer. 'a little while,' said christ, 'and ye shall not see me; and again a little while and ye shall see me.' i hope it may be so now. but the will of god, the best in all things, be done in this as in heaven and earth. amen." many of us think it is a dim hint to those who love him that he knew what was before him, and that after a brief concealment for safety, "till this tyranny be overpast," he will be amongst us once more. i, at least, think so, and pray that to him this time of silence may be a time of close intercourse with god, from which he may come forth refreshed and strengthened to guide and help us all. and meantime, a work, not without peril, but full of sacred joy, opens before me. i have been supplied by the friends of dr. luther's doctrine with copies of his books and pamphlets, both in latin and german, which i am to sell as a hawker through the length and breadth of germany, and in any other lands i can penetrate. i am to start to-morrow, and to me my pack and strap are burdens more glorious than the armour of a prince of the empire; my humble pedlar's coat and staff are vestments more sacred than the robes of a cardinal or the weeds of a pilgrim. for am i not a pilgrim to the city which hath foundations! is not my yoke the yoke of christ? and am i not distributing, among thirsty and enslaved men, the water of life and the truth which sets the heart free? black forest, _may_ . the first week of my wandering life is over. to-day my way lay through the solitary paths of the black forest, which, eleven years ago, i trod with dr. martin luther, on our pilgrimage to rome. both of us then wore the monk's frock and cowl. both were devoted subjects of the pope, and would have deprecated, as the lowest depth of degradation, his anathema. yet at that very time martin luther bore in his heart the living germ of all that is now agitating men's hearts from pomerania to spain. he was already a freedman of christ, and he knew it. the holy scriptures were already to him the one living fountain of truth. believing simply on him who died, the just for the unjust, he had received the free pardon of his sins. prayer was to him the confiding petition of a forgiven child received to the heart of the father, and walking humbly by his side. christ he knew already as the confessor and priest; the holy spirit as the personal teacher through his own word. the fetters of the old ceremonial were indeed still around him, but only as the brown casings still swathe many of the swelling buds of the young leaves; which others, this may morning, cracked and burst as i passed along in the silence through the green forest paths. the moment of liberation, to the passer-by always seems a great, sudden effort; but those who have watched the slow swelling of the imprisoned bud, know that the last expansion of life which bursts the scaly cerements is but one moment of the imperceptible but incessant growth, of which even the apparent death of winter was a stage. but it is good to live in the spring time; and as i went on, my heart sang with the birds and the leaf-buds, "for me also the cerements of winter are burst,--for me and for all the land!" and as i walked, i sang aloud the old easter hymn which eva used to love:-- fone luctum, magdalena, et serena lacrymas; non es jam cermonis coena, non cur fletum exprimas; causae mille sunt lætandi, causae mille exultandi, alleluia resonet! suma risum, magdalena, frons nitescat lucida; denigravit omnis poena, lux coruscat fulgida; christus nondum liberavit, et de morte triumphavit: alleluia resonet! gaude, plaude magdalena, tumbâ christus exiit; tristis est per acta scena, victor mortis rediit; quem deflebis morientem, nunc arride resurgentem: alleluia resonet! tolle vultum, magdalena, redivivum obstupe: vide frons quam sit amoena, quinque plagas adspice; fulgem sicut margaritæ, ornamenta rovæ vitæ: alleluia resonet! vive, vive, magdalena! tua lux reversa est; guadiis turgesit vena, mortis vis obstersa est; maesti procul sunt dolores, læti redeant amores: alleluia resonet! yes, even in the old dark times, heart after heart, in quiet homes and secret convent cells, has doubtless learned this hidden joy. but now the world seems learning it. the winter has its robins, with their solitary warblings; but now the spring is here, the songs come in choruses,--and thank god i am awake to listen! but the voice which awoke this music first in my heart, among these very forests--and since then, through the grace of god, in countless hearts throughout this and all lands--what silence hushes it now? the silence of the grave, or only of some friendly refuge? in either case, doubtless, it is not silent to god. i had scarcely finished my hymn, when the trees became more scattered and smaller, as if they had been cleared not long since; and i found myself on the edge of a valley, on the slopes of which nestled a small village, with its spire and belfry rising among the wooden cottages, and flocks of sheep and goats grazing in the pastures beside the little stream which watered it. i lifted up my heart to god, that some hearts in that peaceful place might welcome the message of eternal peace through the books i carried. as i entered the village, the priest came out of the parsonage--an aged man, with a gentle, kindly countenance--and courteously saluted me. i offered to show him my wares. "it is not likely there will be anything there for me," he said, smiling. "my days are over for ballads and stories, such as i suppose your merchandise consists of." but when he saw the name of luther on the title-page of a volume which i showed him, his face changed, and he said in a grave voice, "do you know what you carry?" "i trust i do," i replied. "i carry most of these books in my heart as well as on my shoulders." "but do you know the danger?" the old man continued. "we have heard that dr. luther has been excommunicated by the pope, and laid under the ban of the empire; and only last week, a travelling merchant, such as yourself, told us that his body had been seen pierced through with a hundred wounds." "that was not true three days since," i said. "at least, his best friends at worms knew nothing of it." "thank god!" he said; "for in this village we owe that good man much. and if," he added timidly, "he has indeed fallen into heresy, it would be well he had time to repent." in that village i sold many of my books, and left others with the good priest, who entertained me most hospitably, and sent me on my way with a tearful farewell, compounded of blessings, warnings, and prayers. paris, _july_, . i have crossed the french frontier, and have been staying some days in this great, gay, learned city. in germany, my books procured me more of welcome than of opposition. in some cases, even where the local authorities deemed it their duty publicly to protest against them, they themselves secretly assisted in their distribution. in others, the eagerness to purchase, and to glean any fragment of information about luther, drew a crowd around me, who, after satisfying themselves that i had no news to give them of his present state, lingered as long as i would speak, to listen to my narrative of his appearance before the emperor at worms, while murmurs of enthusiastic approval, and often sobs and tears, testified the sympathy of the people with him. in the towns, many more copies of his "letter to the german nobles" were demanded than i could supply. but what touched me most was to see the love and almost idolatrous reverence which had gathered around his name in remote districts, among the oppressed and toiling peasantry. i remember especially, in one village, a fine-looking old peasant farmer taking me to an inner room where hung a portrait of luther, encircled with a glory, with a curtain before it. "see!" he said. "the lord of that castle," and he pointed to a fortress on an opposite height, "has wrought me and mine many a wrong. two of my sons have perished in his selfish feuds, and his huntsmen lay waste my fields as they choose in the chase; yet, if i shoot a deer, i may be thrown into the castle dungeon, as mine have been before. but their reign is nearly over now. i saw _that man_ at worms. i heard him speak, bold as a lion, for the truth, before emperor, princes, and prelates. god has sent us the deliverer; and the reign of righteousness will come at last, when every man shall have his due." "friend," i said, with an aching heart, "the deliverer came fifteen hundred years ago, but the reign of justice has not come to the world yet. the deliverer was crucified, and his followers since then have suffered, not reigned." "god is patient," he said, "and _we_ have been patient long, god knows; but i trust the time is come at last." "but the redemption dr. luther proclaims," i said, gently, "is liberty from a worse bondage than that of the nobles, and it is a liberty no tyrant, no dungeon, can deprive us of--the liberty of the sons of god;"--and he listened earnestly while i spoke to him of justification, and of the suffering, redeeming lord. but at the end he said-- "yes, that is good news. but i trust dr. luther will avenge many a wrong among us yet. they say he was a peasant's son like me." if i were dr. luther, and knew that the wistful eyes of the oppressed and sorrowful throughout the land were turned to me, i should be tempted to say-- "lord, let me die before these oppressed and burdened hearts learn how little i can help them!" for verily there is much evil done under the sun. yet as truly there is healing for every disease, remedy for every wrong, and rest from every burden, in the tidings dr. luther brings. but remedy of a different kind, i fear, from what too many fondly expect! it is strange, also, to see how, in these few weeks, the wildest tales have sprung up and spread in all directions about dr. luther's disappearance. some say he has been secretly murdered, and that his wounded corpse has been seen; others, that he was borne away bleeding through the forest to some dreadful doom; while others boldly assert that he will re-appear at the head of a band of liberators, who will go through the length and breadth of the land, redressing every wrong, and punishing every wrong-doer. truly, if a few weeks can throw such a haze around facts, what would a century without a written record have done for christianity; or what would that record itself have been without inspiration? the country was in some parts very disturbed. in alsace i came on a secret meeting of the peasants, who have bound themselves with the most terrible oaths to wage war to the death against the nobles. more than once i was stopped by a troop of horsemen near a castle, and my wares searched, to see if they belonged to the merchants of some city with whom the knight of the castle was at feud; and on one of these occasions it might have fared ill with me if a troop of landsknechts in the service of the empire had not appeared in time to rescue me and my companions. yet everywhere the name of luther was of equal interest. the peasants believed he would rescue them from the tyranny of the nobles; and many of the knights spoke of him as the assertor of german liberties against a foreign yoke. more than one poor parish priest welcomed him as the deliverer from the avarice of the great abbeys or the prelates. thus, in farm-house and hut, in castle and parsonage, i and my books found many a cordial welcome. and all i could do was to sell the books, and tell all who would listen, that the yoke luther's words were powerful to break was the yoke of the devil the prince of all oppressors, and that the freedom he came to republish was freedom from the tyranny of sin and self. my true welcome, however, the one which rejoiced my heart, was when any said, as many did, on sick-beds, in lowly and noble homes, and in monasteries-- "thank god, these words are in our hearts already. they have taught us the way to god; they _have_ brought us peace and freedom." or when others said-- "i must have that book. this one and that one that i know is another man since he read dr. luther's words." but if i was scarcely prepared for the interest felt in dr. luther in our own land, true german that he is, still less did i expect that his fame would have reached to paris, and even further. the night before i reached this city i was weary with a long day's walk in the dust and heat, and had fallen asleep on a bench in the garden outside a village inn, under the shade of a trellised vine, leaving my pack partly open beside me. when i awoke, a grave and dignified-looking man, who, from the richness of his dress and arms, seemed to be a nobleman, and, from the cut of his slashed doubtlet and mantle, a spaniard, sat beside me, deeply engaged in reading one of my books. i did not stir at first, but watched him in silence. the book he held was a copy of luther's commentary on the galatians, in latin. in a few minutes i moved, and respectfully saluted him. "is this book for sale?" he asked i said it was and named the price. he immediately laid down twice the sum, saying, "give a copy to some one who cannot buy." i ventured to ask if he had seen it before. "i have," he said. "several copies were sent by a swiss printer, frobenius, to castile. and i saw it before at venice. it is prohibited in both castile and venice now. but i have always wished to possess a copy that i might judge for myself. do you know dr. luther?" he asked, as he moved away. "i have known and reverenced him for many years," i said. "they say his life is blameless, do they not?" he asked. "even his bitterest enemies confess it to be so," i replied. "he spoke like a brave man before the diet," he resumed; "gravely and quietly, as true men speak who are prepared to abide by their words. a noble of castile could not have spoken with more dignity than that peasant's son. the italian priests thought otherwise; but the oratory which melts girls into tears from pulpits is not the eloquence for the councils of men. that monk had learned his oratory in a higher school. if you ever see dr. luther again," he added, "tell him that some spaniards, even in the emperor's court, wished him well." and here in paris i find a little band of devout and learned men, lefevre, farel, and briconnet, bishop of meaux, actively employed in translating and circulating the writings of luther and melancthon. the truth in them, they say, they had learned before from the book of god itself, namely, justification through faith in a crucified saviour leading to a life devoted to him. but jealous as the french are of admitting the superiority of anything foreign, and contemptuously as they look on us unpolished germans, the french priests welcome luther as a teacher and a brother, and are as eager to hear all particulars of his life as his countrymen in every town and quiet village throughout germany. they tell me also that the king's own sister, the beautiful and learned duchess margaret of valois, reads dr. luther's writings, and values them greatly. indeed, i sometimes think if he had carried out the intention he formed some years since, of leaving wittemberg for paris, he would have found a noble sphere of action here. the people are so frank in speech, so quick in feeling and perception; and their bright keen wit cuts so much more quickly to the heart of a fallacy than our sober, plodding, northern intellect. basel. before i left ebernburg, the knight ulrich von hutten had taken a warm interest in my expedition; had especially recommended me to seek out erasmus, if ever i reached switzerland; and had himself placed some copies of erasmus' sermons, "praise of folly," among my books. personally i feel a strong attachment to that brave knight. i can never forget the generous letter he wrote to luther before his appearance at the diet:--"_the lord hear thee in the day of trouble: the name of the god of jacob defend thee._ o my beloved luther, my reverend father, fear not; be strong. fight valiantly for christ. as for me, i also will fight bravely. would to god i might see how they knit their brows.... may christ preserve you." yes, to see the baffled enemies knit their brows as they did then, would have been a triumph to the impetuous soldier, but at the time he was prohibited from approaching the court. luther's courageous and noble defence filled him with enthusiastic admiration. he declared the doctor to be a greater soldier than any of the knights. when he heard of dr. luther's disappearance he would have collected a band of daring spirits like himself, and scoured the country in search of him. hutten's objects were high and unselfish. he had no mean and petty ambitions. with sword and pen he had contended against oppression and hypocrisy. to him the roman court was detestable, chiefly as a foreign yoke; the corrupt priesthood, as a domestic usurpation. he had a high ideal of knighthood, and believed that his order, enlightened by learning, and inspired by a free and lofty faith, might emancipate germany and christendom. personal danger he despised, and personal aims. yet with all his fearlessness and high aspirations, i scarcely think he hoped himself to be the hero of his ideal chivalry. the self-control of the pure true knight was too little his. in his visions of a christendom from which falsehood and avarice were to be banished, and where authority was to reside in an order of ideal knights, franz von sickingen, the brave good lord of ebernburg, with his devout wife hedwiga, was to raise the standard, around which ulrich and all the true men in the land were to rally. luther, erasmus, and sickingen, he thought--the types of the three orders, learning, knighthood, and priesthood,--might regenerate the world. erasmus had begun the work with unveiling the light in the sanctuaries of learning. luther had carried it on by diffusing the light among the people. the knights must complete it by forcibly scattering the powers of darkness. conflict is erasmus' detestation. it is luther's necessity. it is hutten's delight. i did not, however, expect much sympathy in my work from erasmus. it seemed to me that hutten, admiring his clear, luminous genius, attributed to him the fire of his own warm and courageous heart. however, i intended to seek him out at basel. circumstances saved me the trouble. as i was entering the city, with my pack nearly empty, hoping to replenish it from the presses of frobenius, an elderly man, with a stoop in his shoulders, giving him the air of a student, ambled slowly past me, clad in a doctor's gown and hat, edged with a broad border of fur. the keen small dark eyes surveyed me and my pack for a minute, and then reining in his horse he joined me, and said, in a soft voice and courtly accent, "we are of the same profession, friend. we manufacture, and you sell. what have you in your pack?" i took out three of my remaining volumes. one was luther's "commentary on the galatians;" the others, his "treatise on the lord's prayer," and his "letter to the german nobles." the rider's brow darkened slightly, and he eyed me suspiciously. "men who supply ammunition to the people in times of insurrection seldom do it at their own risk," he said. "young man, you are on a perilous mission, and would do well to count the cost." "i have counted the cost, sir," i said, "and i willingly brave the peril." "well, well," he replied, "some are born for battle-fields, and some for martyrdom; others for neither. let each keep to his calling,-- 'nequissimam pacem justissimo bello antifero' but 'those who let in the sea on the marshes little know where it will spread.'" this illustration from the dutch dykes awakened my suspicions as to who the rider was, and looking at the thin, sensitive, yet satirical lips, the delicate, sharply-cut features, the pallid complexion, and the dark keen eyes i had seen represented in so many portraits, i could not doubt with whom i was speaking. but i did not betray my discovery. "dr. luther has written some good things, nevertheless," he said. "if he had kept to such devotional works as this," returning to me "the lord's prayer," "he might have served his generation quietly and well; but to expose such mysteries as are treated of here to the vulgar gaze, it is madness!" and he hastily closed the "galatians." then glancing at the "letter to the nobles," he almost threw it into my hand, saying petulently,-- "that pamphlet is an insurrection in itself." "what other books have you?" he asked after a pause. i drew out my last copy of the "encomium of folly." "have you sold many of these?" he asked coolly. "all but this copy," i replied. "and what did people say of it?" "that depended on the purchasers," i replied. "some say the author is the wisest and wittiest man of the age, and if all knew where to stop as he does, the world would slowly grow into paradise, instead of being turned upside down as it is now. others, on the contrary, say that the writer is a coward, who has no courage to confess the truth he knows. and others, again, declare the book is worse than any of luther's and that erasmus is the source of all the mischief in the world, since if he had not broken the lock, luther would never have entered the door." "and _you_ think?" he asked. "i am but a poor pedlar, sir," i said; "but i think there is a long way between pilate's delivering up the glorious king he knew was innocent--perhaps began to see might be divine, and st. peter's denying the master he loved. and the lord who forgave peter knows which is which; which the timid disciple, and which the cowardly friend of his foes. but the eye of man, it seems to me, may find it impossible to distinguish. i would rather be luther at the diet of worms, and under anathema and ban, than either." "bold words!" he said, "to prefer an excommunicated heretic to the prince of the apostles!" but a shade passed over his face, and courteously bidding me farewell, he rode on. the conversation seemed to have thrown a shadow and chill over my heart. after a time, however, the rider slackened his pace again, and beckoned to me to rejoin him. "have you friends in basel?" he asked kindly. "none," i replied; "but i have letters to the printer frobenius, and i was recommended to seek out erasmus." "who recommended you to do that?" he asked. "the good knight ulrich von hutten," i replied. "the prince of all turbulent spirits!" he murmured gravely. "little indeed is there in common between erasmus of rotterdam and that firebrand." "ritter ulrich has the greatest admiration for the genius of erasmus," i said, "and thinks that his learning, with the swords of a few good knights, and the preaching of luther, might set christendom right." "ulrich von hutten should set his own life right first," was the reply. "but let us leave discoursing of christendom and these great projects, which are altogether beyond our sphere. let the knights set chivalry right, and the cardinals the papacy, and the emperor the empire. let the hawker attend to his pack, and erasmus to his studies. perhaps hereafter it will be found that his satires on the follies of the monasteries, and above all his earlier translation of the new testament, had their share in the good work. his motto is, 'kindle the light and the darkness will disperse of itself.'" "if erasmus," i said, "would only consent to share in the result he has indeed contributed so nobly to bring about!" "share in what?" he replied quickly; "in the excommunication of luther? or in the wild projects of hutten? have it supposed that he approves of the coarse and violent invectives of the saxon monk, or the daring schemes of the adventurous knight? no; st. paul wrote courteously, and never returned railing for railing. erasmus should wait till he find a reformer like the apostle ere he join the reformation. but, friend," he added, "i do not deny that luther is a good man, and means well. if you like to abandon your perilous pack, and take to study, you may come to my house, and i will help you as far as i can with money and counsel. for i know what it is to be poor, and i think you ought to be better than a hawker. and," he added, bringing his horse to a stand, "if you hear erasmus maligned again as a coward or a traitor, you may say that god has more room in his kingdom than any men have in their schools; and that it is not always so easy for men who see things on many sides to embrace one. believe also that the loneliness of those who see too much or dare too little to be partisans, often has anguish bitterer than the scaffolds of martyrs. but," he concluded in a low voice, as he left me, "be careful never again to link the names of erasmus and hutten. i assure you nothing can be more unlike. and ulrich von hutten is a most rash and dangerous man." "i will be careful never to forget erasmus," i said, bowing low, as i took the hand he offered. and the doctor rode on. yes, the sorrows of the undecided are doubtless bitterer than those of the courageous; bitterer as poison is bitterer than medicine, as an enemy's wound is bitterer than a physician's. yet it is true that the clearer the insight into difficulty and danger, the greater need be the courage to meet them. the path of the rude simple man who sees nothing but right on one side, and nothing but wrong on the other, is necessarily plainer than his who, seeing much evil in the good cause, and some truth at the foundation of all error, chooses to suffer for the right, mixed as it is, and to suffer side by side with men whose manners distress him, just because he believes the cause is on the whole that of truth and god. luther's school may not indeed have room for erasmus, nor erasmus's school for luther; but god may have compassion and room for both. at basel i replenished my pack from the stores of frobenius, and received very inspiriting tidings from him of the spread of the truth of the gospel (especially by means of the writings of luther) into italy and spain. i did not apply further to erasmus. near zurich, _july_. my heart is full of resurrection hymns. everywhere in the world it seems easter-tide. this morning, as i left zurich, and, climbing one of the heights on this side, looked down on the lake, rippled with silver, through the ranges of green and forest-covered hills, to the glorious barrier of far-off mountains, purple, and golden, and snow-crowned, which encircles switzerland, and thought of the many hearts which, during these years, have been awakened here to the liberty of the sons of god, the old chant of easter and spring burst from my lips:-- plandite coeli, rideat æther summus et imus gaudeat orbis! transivit atræ turba procellæ! subuit almæ gloria palmæ! surgite verni, surgite flores, germina pictis surgite campis! teneris mistæ violis rosæ; candida sparsis lilla calthis! currite plenis carmina venis, fundite lætum barbita metrum; namque revixit sicuti dixit pius illæsus funere jesus. plaudite montes, ludite fontes, resonent valles, repetant colles! io revixit. sicuti dixit pius illæsus funere jesus[ ] [footnote : smile praises, o sky! soft breathe them, o air, below and on high, and everywhere! awake thee, o spring! ye flowers, come forth, with thousand hues tinting the soft green earth! ye violets tender, and sweet roses bright, gay lent-lilies blended with pure lilies white. sweep tides of rich music the new world along, and pour in full measure, sweet lyres, your song! the black troop of storms has yielded to calm; tufted blossoms are peeping, and early palm. sing, sing, for he liveth! he lives, as he said;-- the lord has arisen, unharmed, from the dead! clap, clap your hands, mountains! ye valleys, resound! leap, leap for joy, fountains! ye hills, catch the sound! all triumph; he liveth! he lives, as he said:-- the lord has arisen, unharmed, from the dead!] and when i ceased, the mountain stream which dashed over the rocks beside me, the whispering grasses, the trembling wild-flowers, the rustling forests, the lake with its ripples, the green hills and solemn snow-mountains beyond--all seemed to take up the chorus. there is a wonderful, invigorating influence about ulrich zwingle, with whom i have spent many days lately. it seems as if the fresh air of the mountains among which he passed his youth were always around him. in his presence it is impossible to despond. while luther remains immovably holding every step of ground he has taken, zwingle presses on, and surprises the enemy asleep in his strongholds. luther carries on the war like the landsknechts, our own firm and impenetrable infantry; zwingle, like his own impetuous mountaineers, sweeps down from the heights upon the foe. in switzerland i and my books have met with more sudden and violent varieties of reception than anywhere else; the people are so free and unrestrained. in some villages, the chief men, or the priest himself, summoned all the inhabitants by the church bell, to hear all i had to tell about dr. luther and his work, and to buy his books; my stay was one constant _fête_, and the warm-hearted peasants accompanied me miles on my way, discoursing of zwingle and luther, the broken yoke of rome, and the glorious days of freedom that were coming. the names of luther and zwingle were on every lip, like those of tell and winkelried and the heroes of the old struggle of swiss liberation. in other villages, on the contrary, the peasants gathered angrily around me, reviled me as a spy and an intruding foreigner, and drove me with stones and rough jests from among them, threatening that i should not escape so easily another time. in some places they have advanced much further than among us in germany. the images have been removed from the churches, and the service is read in the language of the people. but the great joy is to see that the light has not been spread only from torch to torch, as human illumination spread, but has burst at once on germany, france, and switzerland, as heavenly light dawns from above. it is this which makes it not an illumination merely, but morning and spring! lefevre in france and zwingle in switzerland both passed through their period of storms and darkness, and both, awakened by the heavenly light to the new world, found that it was no solitude--that others also were awake, and that the day's work had begun, as it should, with matin songs. now i am tending northwards once more. i intend to renew my stores at my father's press at wittemberg. my heart yearns also for news of all dear to me there. perhaps, too, i may yet see dr. luther, and find scope for preaching the evangelical doctrine among my own people. for better reports have come to us from germany and we believe dr. luther is in friendly keeping, though where, is still a mystery. the prison of a dominican convent, franconia, _august_. all is changed for me. once more prison walls are around me, and through prison bars i look out on the world i may not re-enter. i counted this among the costs when i resolved to give myself up to spreading far and wide the glad tidings of redemption. it was worth the cost; it is worth whatever man can inflict--for i trust that those days have not been spent in vain. yesterday evening, as the day was sinking, i found my way once more to the parsonage of priest ruprecht in the franconian village. the door was open, but i heard no voices. there was a neglected look about the little garden. the vine was hanging untwined around the porch. the little dwelling, which had been so neat, had a dreary, neglected air. dust lay thick on the chairs, and the remains of the last meal were left on the table. and yet it was evidently not unoccupied. a book lay upon the window-sill, evidently lately read. it was the copy of luther's german commentary on the lord's prayer which i had left that evening many months ago in the porch. i sat down on a window seat, and in a little while i saw the priest coming slowly up the garden. his form was much bent since i saw him last. he did not look up as he approached the house. it seemed as if he expected no welcome. but when i went out to meet him, he grasped my hand cordially, and his face brightened. when, however, he glanced at the book in my hand, a deeper shade passed over his brow; and, motioning me to a chair, he sat down opposite me without speaking. after a few minutes he looked up, and said in a husky voice, "that book did what all the denunciations and terrors of the old doctrines could not do. it separated us. she has left me." he paused for some minutes, and then continued,--"the evening that she found that book in the porch, when i returned i found her reading it. 'see!' she said, 'at last some one has written a religious book for me! it was left here open, in the porch, at these words: "if thou dost feel that in the sight of god and all creatures thou art a fool, a sinner, impure, and condemned, ... there remaineth no solace for thee, and no salvation, unless in jesus christ. to know him is to understand what the apostle says,--'christ has of god been made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.' he is the bread of god--our bread, given to us as children of the heavenly father. to believe is nothing else than to eat this bread from heaven." and look again. the book says, "it touches god's heart when we call him father,"--and again, "_which art in heaven._" "he that acknowledges he has a father who is in heaven, owns that he is like an orphan on the earth. hence his heart feels an ardent longing, like a child living away from its father's country, amongst strangers, wretched and forlorn. it is as if he said, "alas! my father, thou art in heaven, and i, thy miserable child, am on earth, far from thee amid danger, necessity, and sorrow." 'ah, ruprecht,' she said, her eyes streaming with tears, 'that is so like what i feel,--so lost, and orphaned, and far away from home.' and then, fearing she had grieved me, she added, 'not that i am neglected. thou knowest i could never feel that. but oh, can it be possible that god would take me back, not after long years of penance, but _now_, and _here_, to his very heart?" "i could say little to teach her, but from that time this book was her constant companion. she begged me to find out all the passages in my latin gospels which speak of jesus suffering for sinners, and of god as the father. i was amazed to see how many there were. the book seemed full of them. and so we went on for some days, until one evening she came to me, and said, 'ruprecht, if god is indeed so infinitely kind and good, and has so loved us, we must obey him, must we not?' i could not for the world say no, and i had not the courage to say yes, for i knew what she meant." again he paused. "i knew too well what she meant, when, on the next morning, i found the breakfast laid, and everything swept and prepared as usual, and on the table, in printed letters on a scrap of paper, which she must have copied from the book, for she could not write, 'farewell. we shall be able to pray for each other now. and god will be with us, and will give us to meet hereafter, without fear of grieving him, in our father's house." "do you know where she is?" i asked. "she has taken service in a farm-house several miles away in the forest," he replied. "i have seen her once. she looked very thin and worn. but she did not see me." the thought which had so often suggested itself to me before, came with irresistible force into my mind then,--"if those vows of celibacy are contrary to the will of god, can they be binding?" but i did not venture to suggest them to my host. i only said, "let us pray that god will lead you both. the heart can bear many a heavy burden if the conscience is free!" "true," he said. and together we knelt down, whilst i spoke to god. and the burden of our prayer was neither more nor less than this, "our father which art in heaven, not our will, but thine be done." on the morrow i bade him farewell, leaving him several other works of luther's. and i determined not to lose an hour in seeking melancthon and the doctors of wittemberg, and placing this case before them. and now, perhaps, i shall never see wittemberg again! it is not often that i have ventured into the monasteries, but to-day a young monk, who was walking in the meadows of this abbey, seemed so interested in my books, that i followed him to the convent, where he thought i should dispose of many copies. instead of this, however, whilst i was waiting in the porch for him to return, i heard the sound of angry voices in discussion inside, and before i could perceive what it meant, three or four monks came to me, seized my pack, bound my hands, and dragged me to the convent prison, where i now am. "it is time that this pestilence should be checked," said one of them. "be thankful if your fate is not the same as that of your poisonous books, which are this evening to make a bonfire in the court." and with these words i was left alone in this low, damp, dark cell, with its one little slit high in the wall, which, until my eyes grew accustomed to it, seemed only to admit just light enough to show the iron fetters hanging from the walls. but what power can make me a captive while i can sing:-- mortis portis practis, fortis fortior vim sustulit; et per crucem regem trucem, infernorum perculit. lumen clarum tenebrarum sedibus resplenduit; dum salvare, recreare quod creavit, voluit. hinc creator, ne peccator, moreretur, moritur; cujus morte, nova sorte, vita nobis oritur.[ ] [footnote : lo, the gates of death are broken, and the strong man armed is spoiled, of his armour, which he trusted, by the stronger arm despoiled. vanquished is the prince of hell; smitten by the cross, he fell. that the sinner might not perish, for him the creator dies; by whose death, our dark lot changing, life again for us doth rise,] are not countless hearts now singing this resurrection hymn, to some of whom my hands brought the joyful tidings? in the lonely parsonage, in the forest and farm, hearts set free by love from the fetters of sin--in village and city, in mountain and plain! and at wittemberg, in happy homes, and in the convent, are not my beloved singing it too? _september_. yet the time seems long to lie in inaction here. with these tidings, "the lord is risen," echoing through her heart, would it not have been hard for the magdalene to be arrested on her way to the bereaved disciples before she could tell it? _october_. i have a hope of escape. in a corner of my prison i discovered, some days since, the top of an arch, which i believe must belong to a blocked-up door. by slow degrees--working by night, and covering over my work by day--i have dug out a flight of steps which led to it. this morning i succeeded in dislodging one of the stones with which the door-way had been roughly filled up, and through the space surveyed the ground outside. it was a portion of a meadow, sloping to the stream which turned the abbey mills. this morning two of the monks came to summon me to an examination before the prior, as to my heresies; but to-night i hope to dislodge the few more stones, and this very night, before morning dawn, to be treading with free step the forest covered hills beyond the valley. my limbs feel feeble with insufficient food, and the damp, close air of the cell; and the blood flows with feverish, uncertain rapidity through my veins; but, doubtless, a few hours on the fresh, breezy hills will set all this right. and yet once more i shall see my mother, and elsè, and thekla, and little gretchen, and all--all but one, who, i fear, is still imprisoned in convent walls. yet once more i trust to go throughout the land spreading the joyful tidings.--"the lord is risen indeed;" the work of redemption is accomplished, and he who once lived and suffered on earth, compassionate to heal, now lives and reigns in heaven, mighty to save. xx. thekla's story. tunnenberg, _may_, is the world really the same? was there really ever a spring like this, when the tide of life seems overflowing and bubbling up in leaf-buds, flowers, and song, and streams? it cannot be _only_ that god has given me the great blessing of bertrand de crèqui's love, and that life opens in such bright fields of hope and work before us two; or that this is the first spring i ever spent in the country. it seems to me that god is really pouring a tide of fresh life throughout the world. fritz has escaped from the prison at maintz, and he writes as if he felt this an easter-tide for all men. in all places, he says, the hearts of men are opening to the glad tidings of the redeeming love of god. can it be, however, that every may is such a festival among the woods, and that this solemn old forest holds such fairy holiday every year, garlanding its bare branches and strewing every brown nook which a sunbeam can reach, with showers of flowers, such as we strew on a bride's path? and then, who could have imagined that those grave old firs and stately birches could become the cradles of all these delicate-tufted blossoms and tenderly-folded leaflets, bursting on all sides from their gummy casings? and--joy of all joys!--it is not unconscious vegetable life only which thus expands around us. it is god touching every branch and hidden root, and waking them to beauty! it is not sunshine merely, and soft breezes; it is our father smiling on his works, and making the world fresh and fair for his children,--it is the healing touch and the gracious voice we have learned to know. "we are in the world, and the world was made by thee;" "_te deum laudamus_: we acknowledge thee, o saviour, to be the lord." our chriemhild certainly has a beautiful home. bertrand's home, also, is a castle in the country, in flanders. but he says their country is not like this forest-land. it has long been cleared by industrious hands. there are long stately avenues leading to his father's chateau; but all around, the land is level, and waving with grass and green or golden corn-fields. that, also, must be beautiful. but probably the home he has gone to prepare for me may not be there. some of his family are very bitter against what they call his lutheran heresy, and although he is the heir, it is very possible that the branch of the family which adheres to the old religion may wrest the inheritance from him. that, we think, matters little. god will find the right place for us, and lead us to it, if we ask him. and if it be in the town, after all, the tide of life in human hearts is nobler than that in trees and flowers. in a few months we shall know. perhaps he may return here, and become a professor at wittemberg, whither dr. luther's name brought him a year since to study. _june_, . a rumour has reached us, that dr. luther has disappeared on his way back from worms. this spring, in the world as well as in the forest, will doubtless have its storms. last night, the thunder echoed from hill to hill, and the wind wailed wildly among the pines. looking out of my narrow window in the tower on the edge of the rock, where i sleep, it was awful to see the foaming torrent below gleaming in the lightning-flashes, which opened out sudden glimpses into the depths of the forest, leaving it doubly mysterious. i thought of fritz's lonely night, when he lost himself in the forest; and thanked god that i had learned to know the thunder as his voice, and his voice as speaking peace and pardon. only, at such times i should like to gather all dear to me around me; and those dearest to me are scattered far and wide. the old knight ulrich is rather impetuous and hot-tempered; and his sister, ulrich's aunt, dame hermentrud, is grave and stately. fortunately, they both look on chriemhild as a wonder of beauty and goodness; but i have to be rather careful. dame hermentrud is apt to attribute any over-vehemence of mine in debate to the burgher cotta-blood; and although they both listen with interest to ulrich or chriemhild's version of dr. luther's doctrines, dame hermentrud frequently warns me against unfeminine exaggeration or eagerness in these matters, and reminds me that the ancestors of the gersdorf family were devout and excellent people long before a son was born to hans luther the miner. the state of the peasants distresses chriemhild and me extremely. she and ulrich were full of plans for their good when they came here to live; but she is at present almost exclusively occupied with the education of a little knightly creature, who came into the world two months since, and is believed to concentrate in his single little person all the ancestral virtues of all the gersdorfs, to say nothing of the schönbergs. he has not, dame hermantrud asserts, the slightest feature of resemblance to the cottas. i cannot, certainly, deny that he bears unmistakable traces of that aristocratic temper and that lofty taste for ruling which at times distinguished my grandmother, and, doubtless, all the gersdorfs from the days of adam downward, or at least from the time of babel. beyond that, i believe, few pedigrees are traced, except in a general way to the sons of noah. but it is a great honour for me to be connected, even in the humblest manner, with such a distinguished little being. in time, i am not without hopes that it will introduce a little reflex nobility even into my burgher nature: and meantime chriemhild and i secretly trace remarkable resemblances in the dear baby features to our grandmother, and even to our beloved, sanguine, blind father. it is certainly a great consolation that our father chose our names from the poems and the stars and the calendar of aristocratic saints, instead of from the lowly cotta pedigree. ulrich has not indeed by any means abandoned his scheme of usefulness among the peasantry who live on his uncle's estates. but he finds more opposition than he expected. the old knight, although ready enough to listen to any denunciations of the self-indulgent priests and lazy monks (especially those of the abbey whose hunting-grounds adjoin his own), is very averse to making the smallest change in anything. he says the boors are difficult enough to keep in order as it is; that if they are taught to think for themselves, there will be no safety for the game, or for anything else. they will be quoting the bible in all kinds of wrong senses against their rightful lords, and will perhaps even take to debating the justice of the hereditary feuds, and refuse to follow their knight's banner to the field. as to religion, he is quite sure that the ave and the pater are as much as will be expected of them; whilst dame hermentrud has most serious doubts of this new plan of writing books and reading prayers in the language of the common people. they will be thinking themselves as wise as the priests, and perhaps wiser than their masters. but ulrich's chief disappointment is with the peasants themselves. they seem as little anxious for improvement as the lords are for them, and are certainly suspicious to a most irritating degree of any schemes for their welfare issuing from the castle. as to their children being taught to read, they consider it an invasion of their rights, and murmur that if they follow the nobles in hunt and foray, and till their fields, and go to mass on sunday, the rest of their time is their own, and it is an usurpation in priest or knight to demand more. it will, i fear, be long before the dry, barren crust of their dull hard life is broken; and yet the words of life are for them as much as for us! and one great difficulty seems to me, that if they were taught to read, there are so few german religious books. except a few tracts of dr. luther's, what is there that they could understand? if some one would only translate the record of the words and acts of our lord and his apostles, it would be worth while then teaching every one to read. and if we could only get them to confide in us! there must be thought, and we know there is affection underneath all this reserve. it is a heavy heritage for the long ancestry of the gersdorfs to have bequeathed to this generation, these recollections of tyranny and this mutual distrust. yet ulrich says it is too common throughout the land. many of the old privileges of the nobles were so terribly oppressive in hard or careless hands. the most promising field at present seems to be among the household retainers. among these there is strong personal attachment; and the memory of ulrich's pious mother seems to have left behind it that faith in goodness which is one of the most precious legacies of holy lives. even the peasants in the village speak lovingly of her; of the medicine she used to distil from the forest-herbs, and distribute with her own hands to the sick. there is a tradition also in the castle of a bright maiden called beatrice who used to visit the cottage homes, and bring sunshine whenever she came. but she disappeared years ago, they say; and the old family nurse shakes her head as she tells me how the lady beatrice's heart was broken, when she was separated by family feuds from her betrothed, and after that she went to the convent at nimptschen, and has been dead to the world ever since. nimptschen! that is the living grave where our precious eva is buried. and yet where she is i am sure it can be no grave of death. she will bring life and blessings with her. i will write to her, especially about this poor blighted beatrice. altogether the peasants seem much less suspicious of the women of the gersdorf family than of the men. they will often listen attentively even to me. and when chriemhild can go among them a little more, i hope better days will dawn. _august_, . this morning we had a strange encounter. some days since we received a mysterious intimation from wittemberg, that dr. luther is alive and in friendly keeping, not far from us. to-day ulrich and i were riding through the forest to visit an outlying farm of the gersdorfs in the direction of eisenach, when we heard across a valley the huntsman's horn, with the cry of the dogs in full chase. in a few moments an opening among the trees brought us in sight of the hunt sweeping towards us up the opposite slopes of the valley. apart from the hunt, and nearer us, at a narrow part of the valley, we observed a figure in the cap and plumes of a knight, apparently watching the chase as we were. as we were looking at him, a poor bewildered leveret flew towards him, and cowered close to his feet. he stooped, and gently taking it up, folded it in the long sleeve of his tunic, and stepped quickly aside. in another minute, however, the hunt swept up towards him, and the dogs scenting the leveret, seized on it in its refuge, dragged it down, and killed it. this unusual little incident, this human being putting himself on the side of the pursued, instead of among the pursuers, excited our attention. there was also something is the firm figure and sturdy gait that perplexingly reminded us of some one we knew. our road lay across the valley, and ulrich rode aside to greet the strange knight. in a moment he returned to me, and whispered,-- "it is martin luther!" we could not resist the impulse to look once more on the kind honest face, and riding close to him we bowed to him. he gave us a smile of recognition, and laying his hand on ulrich's saddle said, softly, "the chase is a mystery of higher things. see how, as these ferocious dogs seized my poor leveret from its refuge, satan rages against souls, and seeks to tear from their hiding-place even those already saved. but the arm which holds them is stronger than mine. i have had enough of this kind of chase," he added; "sweeter to me the chase of the bears, wolves, boars, and foxes which lay waste the church, than that of these harmless creatures. and of such rapacious beasts there are enough in the world." my heart was full of the poor peasants i had been seeing lately. i never could feel afraid of dr. luther, and this opportunity was too precious to be thrown away. it always seemed the most natural thing in the world to open one's heart to him. he understood so quickly and so fully. as he was wishing us good-bye, therefore, i said (i am afraid, in that abrupt blundering way of mine),-- "dear dr. luther, the poor peasants here are so ignorant! and i have scarcely anything to read to them which they can understand. tell some one, i entreat you, to translate the gospels into german for them; such german as your 'discourse on the magnificat,' or 'the lord's prayer,' for they all understand that." he smiled, and said, kindly,-- "it is being done, my child. i am trying in my patmos tower once more to unveil the revelation to the common people; and, doubtless, they will hear it gladly. that book alone is the sun from which all true teachers draw their light. would that it were in the language of every man, held in every hand, read by every eye, listened to by every ear, treasured up in every heart. and it will be yet, i trust." he began to move away, but as we looked reverently after him he turned to us again, and said, "remember the wilderness was the scene of the temptation. pray for me, that in the solitude of my wilderness i may be delivered from the tempter." and waving his hand, in a few minutes he was out of sight. we thought it would be an intrusion to follow him, or to inquire where he was concealed. but as the hunt passed away, ulrich recognized one of the huntsmen as a retainer of the elector frederick at his castle of the wartburg. and now when every night and morning in my prayers i add, as usual, the name of dr. luther to those of my mother and father and all dear to me, i think of him passing long days and nights alone in that grim castle, looking down on the dear old eisenach valley, and i say, "lord, make the wilderness to him the school for his ministry to all our land." for was not our saviour himself led first into the wilderness, to overcome the tempter in solitude, before he came forth to teach, and heal, and cast out devils? _october_. ulrich has seen dr. luther again. he was walking in the forest near the wartburg, and looked very ill and sad. his heart was heavy on account of the disorders in the church, the falsehood and bitterness of the enemies of the gospel, and the impetuosity or lukewarmness of too many of its friends. he said it would almost have been better if they had left him to die by the hands of his enemies. his blood might have cried to god for deliverance. he was ready to yield himself to them as an ox to the yoke. he would rather be burned on live coals, than sleep away the precious years thus, half alive, in sloth and ease. and yet, from what ulrich gathered further from him of his daily life, his "sloth and ease" would seem arduous toil to most men. he saw the room where dr. luther lives and labours day and night, writing letters of consolation to his friends, and masterly replies, they say, to the assailants of the truth, and (better than all) translating the bible from hebrew and greek into german. the room has a large window commanding many reaches of the forest; and he showed ulrich the rookery in the tops of the trees below, whence he learned lessons in politics from the grave consultations of the rooks who hold their diet there; he also spoke to him of the various creatures in rock and forest which soothed his solitude, the birds singing among the branches, the berries, wild flowers, and the clouds and stars. but he alluded also to fearful conflicts, visible and audible appearances of the evil one; and his health seemed much shattered. we fear that noble loving heart is wearing itself out in the lonely fortress. he seems chafing like a war-horse at the echo of the distant battle; or a hunter at the sound of the chase; or, rather, as a captive general who sees his troops, assailed by force and stratagem, broken and scattered, and cannot break his chains to rally and to lead them on. yet he spoke most gratefully of his hospitable treatment in the castle; said he was living like a prince or a cardinal; and deprecated the thought that the good cause would not prosper without his presence. "i cannot be with them in death," he said, "nor they with me! each must fight that last fight, go through that passion alone. and only those will overcome who have learned how to win the victory before, and grounded deep in the heart that word, which is the great power against sin and the devil, that christ has died for each one of us, and has overcome satan for ever." he said also that if melancthon lived it mattered little to the church what happened to him. the spirit of elijah came in double power on elisha. and he gave ulrich two or three precious fragments of his translation of the gospels, for me to read to the peasants. _november_. i have gone with my precious bits of the german bible that is to be into many a cottage during this month,--simple narratives of poor, leprous, and palsied people, who came to the lord, and he touched them and healed their diseases; and of sinners whom he forgave. it is wonderful how the simple people seem to drink them in; that is, those who care at all for such things. "is this indeed what the lord christ is like?" they say; "then, surely, we may speak to him in our own words, and ask just what we want, as those poor men and women did of old. is it true, indeed, that peasants, women, and sick people could come straight to the lord himself? was he not always kept off from common people by a band of priests and saints? was he indeed to be spoken to by all, and he such a great lord?" i said that i thought it was the necessity of human princes, and not their glory, to be obliged to employ deputies, and not let each one plead his own case. they look greatest afar off, surrounded by the pomp of a throne, because in themselves they are weak and sinful, like other men. but he needed no pomp, nor the dignity of distance, because he is not like other men, but sinless and divine, and the glory is in himself, not in the things around him. then i had a narrative of the crucifixion to read; and many a tear have i seen stream over rough cheeks, and many a smile beam in dim aged eyes as i read this. "we seem to understand it all at once," an old woman said; "and yet there always seems something more in it each time." _december_. this morning i had a letter from bertrand,--the first for many weeks. he is full of hope; not, indeed, of recovering his inheritance, but of being at wittemberg again in a few weeks. i suppose my face looked very bright when i received it and ran with the precious letter to my own room; for dame hermentrud said much this evening about receiving everything with moderation, and about the propriety of young maidens having a very still and collected demeanour, and about the uncertainty of all things below. my heavenly father knows i do not forget that all things are uncertain; although, often, i dare not dwell on it. but he has given me this good gift--he himself--and i will thank him with an overflowing heart for it! i cannot understand dame hermentrud's religion. she seems to think it prudent, and a duty, to take everything god gives coolly, as if we did not care very much about it, lest he should think he had given us something too good for us, and grudge it to us, and take it away again. no; if god does take away, he takes away as he gave, in infinite love; and i would not for the world add darkness to the dark days, if they must come, by the bitter regret that i did not enjoy the sunshine whilst he gave it. for, indeed, i cannot help fearing sometimes, when i think of the martyrs of old, and the bitterness of the enemies of the good tidings now. but then i try to look up, and try to say, "safer, o father, in thy hands than in mine." and all the comfort of the prayer depends on how i can comprehend and feel that name, "father!" xxi. eva's story. cistercian convent, nimptschen, _september_ , . they have sent me several sheets of dr. luther's translation of the new testament, from uncle cotta's press at wittemberg. of all the works he ever did for god, this seems to me the mightiest and the best. none has ever so deeply stirred our convent. many of the sisters positively refuse to join in any invocation of the saints. they declare that it must be satan himself who has kept this glorious book locked up in a dead language out of reach of women and children and the common people. and the young nuns say it is so interesting, it is not in the least like a book of sermons, or a religious treatise. "it is like every-day life," said one of them to me, "with what every one wants brought into it; a perfect friend, so infinitely good, so near, and so completely understanding our inmost hearts. ah, sister eva," she added, "if they could only hear of this at home!" _october_. to-day we have received a copy of dr. luther's thesis against the monastic life. "there is but one only spiritual estate," he writes, "which is holy and makes holy, and that is christianity,--the faith which is the common right of all." "monastic institutions," he continues, "to be of any use ought to be schools, in which children may be brought up until they are adults. but as it is, they are houses in which men and women become children, and ever continue childish." too well, alas! i know the truth of these last words; the hopeless, childish occupation with trifles, into which the majority of the nuns sink when the freshness of youth and the bitter conflict of separation from all dear to the heart has subsided, and the great incidents of life have become the decorating the church for a festival, or the pomp attending the visit of an inspector or bishop. it is against this i have striven. it is this i dread for the young sisters; to see them sink into contented trifling with religious playthings. and i have been able to see no way of escape, unless, indeed, we could be transferred to some city and devote ourselves to the case of the sick and poor. dr. luther, however, admits of another solution. we hear that he has counselled the prior of the monastery at erfurt to suffer any monks who wish it freely to depart. and many, we have been told, in various monasteries, have already left, and returned to serve god in the world. monks can, indeed, do this. the world is open before them, and in some way they are sure to find occupation. but with us it is different. torn away from our natural homes, the whole world around us is a trackless desert. yet how can i dare to say this? since the whole world is the work of our heavenly father's hands, and may be the way to our father's house, will not he surely find a place for each of us in it, and a path for us through it? _november_ . nine of the younger nuns have come to the determination, if possible, to give up the conventual life, with its round of superstitious observances. this evening we held a consultation in sister beatrice's cell. aunt agnes joined us. it was decided that each should write to her relatives, simply confessing that she believed the monastic vows and life to be contrary to the holy scriptures, and praying to be received back into her family. sister beatrice and aunt agnes decided to remain patiently where they were. "my old home would be no more a home to me now than the convent," sister beatrice said. "there is liberty for me to die here, and an open way for my spirit to return to god." and aunt agnes said,-- "who knows but that there may be some lowly work left for me to do here yet! in the world i should be as helpless as a child, and why should i return to be a burden on my kindred." they both urged me to write to elsè or aunt cotta to receive me. but i can scarcely think it my duty. aunt cotta has her children around her. elsè's home is strange to me. besides, kind as every one has been to me, i am as a stray waif on the current of this world, and have no home in it. i think god has enabled me to cheer and help some few here, and while aunt agnes and sister beatrice remain, i cannot bear the thought of leaving. at all events i will wait. _november_ . fritz is in prison again. for many weeks they had heard nothing from him, and were wondering where he was, when a letter came from a priest called ruprect haller, in franconia. he says fritz came to his house one evening in july, remained the night, left next morning with his pack of lutheran books, intending to proceed direct to wittemberg, and gave him the address of aunt cotta there. but a few weeks afterwards a young monk met him near the dominican convent, and asked if he were the priest at whose house a pedlar had spent a night a few weeks before. the priest admitted it; whereon the young monk said to him, in a low, hurried accent,-- "write to his friends, if you know them, and say he is in the prison of the convent, under strong suspicion of heresy. i am the young monk to whom he gave a book on the evening he came. tell them i did not intend to betray him, although i led him into the net; and if ever they should procure his escape, and you see him again, tell him i have kept his book." the good priest says something also about fritz having been his salvation. and he urges that the most strenuous exertions should be made to liberate him, and any powerful friends we have should be entreated to intercede, because the prior of the dominican convent where he is imprisoned is a man of the severest temper, and a mighty hater of heretics. powerful friends! i know none whom we can entreat but god. it was in july, then, that he was captured, two months since. i wonder if it is only my impatient spirit! but i feel as if i _must_ go to aunt cotta. i have a feeling she will want me now. i think i might comfort her; for who can tell what two months in a dominican prison may have done for him? in our convent have we not a prison, low, dark, and damp enough to weigh the life out of any one in six weeks! from one of the massive low pillars hang heavy iron fetters, happily rusted now from disuse; and in a corner are a rack and other terrible instruments, now thrown aside there, on which some of the older nuns say they have seen stains of blood. when he was in prison before at mainz, i did not seem so desponding about his deliverance as i feel now. are these fears god's merciful preparations for some dreadful tidings about to reach us? or are they the mere natural enfeebling of the power to hope as one grows older? _december_, . many disappointments have fallen on us during the last fortnight. answer after answer has come to those touching entreaties of the nine sisters to their kindred, in various tones of feeling, but all positively refusing to receive them back to their homes. some of the relatives use the bitterest reproaches and the severest menaces. others write tenderly and compassionately, but all agree that no noble family can possibly bring on itself the disgrace of aiding a professed nun to break her vows. poor children! my heart aches for them, some of them are so young, and were so confident of being welcomed back with open arms, remembering the tears with which they were given up. now indeed they are thrown on god. he will not fail them; but who can say what thorny paths their feet may have to tread? it has also been discovered here that some of them have written thus to their relations, which renders their position far more difficult and painful. many of the older nuns are most indignant at what they consider an act of the basest treachery and sacrilege. i also am forbidden to have any more intercourse with the suspected sisters. search has been made in every cell, and all the lutheran books have been seized, whilst the strictest attendance is required at all the services. _february_ , . sister beatrice is dead, after a brief illness. the gentle, patient spirit is at rest. it seems difficult to think of joy associated with that subdued and timid heart, even in heaven. i can only think of her as _at rest_. one night after she died i had a dream, in which i seemed to see her entering into heaven. robed and veiled in white, i saw her slowly ascending the way to the gates of the city. her head and her eyes were cast on the ground, and she did not seem to dare to look up at the pearly gates, even to see if they were open or closed. but two angels, the gentlest spirits in heaven, came out and met her, and each taking one of her hands, led her silently inside, like a penitent child. and as she entered, the harps and songs within seemed to be hushed to music soft as the dreamy murmur of a summer noon. still she did not look up, but passed through the golden streets with her hands trustingly folded in the hands of the angels, until she stood before the throne. then from the throne came a voice, which said, "beatrice, it is i; be not afraid." and when she heard that voice, a quiet smile beamed over her face like a glory, and for the first time she raised her eyes; and sinking at his feet, murmured, "home!" and it seemed to me as if that one word from the low, trembling voice vibrated through every harp in heaven; and from countless voices, ringing as happy children's, and tender as a mother's, came back, in a tide of love and music, the word, "welcome home." this was only a dream; but it is no dream that she is there! she said little in her illness. she did not suffer much. the feeble frame made little resistance to the low fever which attacked her. the words she spoke were mostly expressions of thankfulness for little services, or entreaties for forgiveness for any little pain she fancied she might have given. aunt agnes and i chiefly waited on her. she was uneasy if we were long away from her. her thoughts often recurred to her girlhood in the old castle in the thuringian forest; and she liked to hear me speak of chriemhild and ulrich, and their infant boy. one evening she called me to her, and said, "tell my sister hermentrud, and my brother, i am sure they all meant kindly in sending me here; and it has been a good place for me, especially since you came. but tell chriemhild and ulrich," she added, "if they have daughters, to remember plighted troth is a sacred thing, and let it not be lightly severed. not that the sorrow has been evil for me; only i would not have another suffer. all, all has been good for me, and i so unworthy of all!" then passing her thin hands over my head as i knelt beside her, she said, "eva, you have been like a mother, a sister, a child,--everything to me. go back to your old home when i am gone. i like to think you will be there." then, as if fearing she might have been ungrateful to aunt agnes, she asked for her, and said, "i can never thank you enough for all you have done for me. the blessed lord will remember it; for did he not say, 'in that ye have done it unto the _least_.'" and in the night, as i sat by her alone, she said, "eva, i have dreaded very much to die. i am so very weak in spirit, and dread everything. but i think god must make it easier for the feeble such as me. for although i do not feel any stronger i am not afraid now. it must be because he is holding me up." she then asked me to sing; and with a faltering voice i sung, as well as i could, the hymn, _astant angelorum chori:_-- high the angel-choirs are raising heart and voice in harmony: the creator king still praising, whom in beauty there they see! sweetest strains from soft harps stealing, trumpet notes of triumph pealing; radiant wings and white robes gleaming, up the steps of glory streaming, where the heavenly bells are ringing, holy, holy, holy, singing to the mighty trinity! for all earthly care and sighing in that city cease to be! and two days after, in the grey of the autumn morning, she died. she fell asleep with the name of jesus on her lips. it is strange how silent and empty the convent seems, only because that feeble voice is hushed and that poor shadowy form has passed away! _february_, . sister beatrice has been laid in the convent church-yard with solemn mournful dirges and masses, and stately ceremonies, which seemed to me little in harmony with her timid, shrinking nature, or with the peace her spirit rests in now. the lowly mound in the church-yard, marked by no memorial but a wooden cross, accords better with her memory. the wind will rustle gently there next summer, through the grass; and this winter the robin will warble quietly in the old elm above. but i shall never see the grass clothe that earthly mound. it is decided that i am to leave the convent this week. aunt agnes and two of the young sisters have just left my cell, and all is planned. the persecutions against those they call the lutheran sisters increase continually, whilst severer and more open proceedings are threatened. it is therefore decided that i am to make my escape at the first favourable opportunity, find my way to wittemberg, and then lay the case of the nine nuns before the lutheran doctors, and endeavour to provide for their rescue. _february_ , . at last the peasant's dress in which i am to escape is in my cell, and this very night, when all is quiet, i am to creep out of the window of katherine von bora's cell, into the convent garden. aunt agnes has been nervously eager about my going, and has been busy secretly storing a little basket with provisions. but to-night, when i went into her cell to wish her good-bye, she quite broke down, and held me tight in her arms, as if she could never let me go, while her lips quivered, and tears rolled slowly over her thin furrowed cheeks. "eva, child," she said, "who first taught me to love in spite of myself, and then taught me that god is love, and that he could make me, believing in jesus, a happy, loving child again! how can i part with thee?" "thou wilt join me again," i said, "and your sister who loves thee so dearly!" she shook her head and smiled through her tears, as she said,-- "poor helpless old woman that i am, what would you all do with me in the busy life outside?" but her worst fear was for me, in my journey alone to wittemberg, which seemed to her, who for forty years had never passed the convent walls, so long and perilous. aunt agnes always thinks of me as a young girl, and imagines every one must think me beautiful, because love makes me so to her. she is sure they will take me for some princess in disguise. she forgets i am a quiet, sober-looking woman of seven-and-twenty, whom no one will wonder to see gravely plodding along the highway. but i almost made her promise to come to us at wittemberg; and at last she reproached herself with distrusting god, and said she ought never to have feared that his angels would watch over me. once more, then, the world opens before me; but i do not hope (and why should i wish?) that it should be more to me than this convent has been,--a place where god will be with me and give me some little loving services to do for him. but my heart does yearn to embrace dear aunt cotta and elsè once more, and little thekla. and when thekla marries, and aunt and uncle cotta are left alone, i think they may want me, and cousin eva may grow old among elsè's children, and all the grandchildren, helping one and another a little, and missed a little when god takes me. but chiefly i long to be near aunt cotta, now that fritz is in that terrible prison. she always said i comforted her more than any one, and i think i may again. xxii. elsè's story. _october_, . christopher has just returned from a journey to halle. they have dared once more to establish the sale of indulgences there, under the patronage of the young and self-indulgent archbishop albert of mainz. many of the students and the more thoughtful burghers are full of indignation at seeing the great red cross once more set up, and the heavenly pardons hawked through the streets for sale. this would not have been attempted, gottfried feels sure, had not the enemy believed that dr. luther's voice is silenced for ever. letters from him are, however, privately handed about among us here, and more than one of us know that he is in safe keeping not very far from us. _november_. gottfried has just brought me the letter from luther to the archbishop of mainz; which will at least convince the indulgence-mongers that they have roused the sleeping lion. he reminds the archbishop-elector that a conflagration has already been raised by the protest of one poor insignificant monk against tetzel; he warns him that the god who gave strength to that feeble human voice because its spoke his truth, "is living still, and will bring down the lofty cedars and the haughty pharoahs, and can easily humble an elector of mainz although there were four emperors supporting him." he solemnly requires him to put down that avaricious sale of lying pardons at mainz, or he will speedily publish a denunciation (which he has already written) against "the new school at halle." "for luther," he says, "is not dead yet." we are in great doubt how the archbishop will bear such a bold remonstrance. _november_ . the remonstrance has done its work. the prince archbishop has written a humble and apologetic letter to dr. luther, and the indulgences are once more banished from halle. at wittemberg, however, dr. luther's letters do not at all compensate for his absence. there is great confusion here, and not seldom there are encounters between the opposite parties in the streets. almost all the monks in the augustinian convent refused some weeks since to celebrate private masses or to adore the host. the gentle dr. melancthon and the other doctors at first remonstrated, but were at length themselves convinced, and appealed to the elector of saxony himself to abolish these idolatrous ceremonies. we do not yet know how he will act. no public alterations have yet been made in the church services. but the great event which is agitating wittemberg now is the abandonment of the cloister and the monastic life by thirteen of the augustinian monks. the pastor feldkirchen declared against priestly vows, and married some months since. but he was only a secular priest; and the opinions of all good men about the marriage of the priests of the parochial churches have long been undivided amongst us. concerning the monks, however, it is different. for the priests to marry is merely a change of state; for the monks to abandon their vows is the destruction of their order, and of the monastic life altogether. gottfried and i are fully persuaded they are right; and we honour greatly these men, who, disclaiming maintenance at other people's expense, are content to place themselves among the students at the university. more especially, however, i honour the older or less educated brethren, who, relinquishing the consideration and idle plenty of the cloister, set themselves to learn some humble trade. one of these has apprenticed himself to a carpenter; and as we passed his bench the other day, and watched him perseveringly trying to train his unaccustomed fingers to handle the tools, gottfried took off his cap and respectfully saluted him, saying,-- "yes, that is right. christianity must begin again with the carpenter's home at nazareth." in our family, however, opinions are divided. our dear, anxious mother perplexes herself much as to what it will all lead to. it is true that fritz's second imprisonment has greatly shaken her faith in the monks; but she is distressed at the unsettling tendencies of the age. to her it seems all destructive; and the only solution she can imagine for the difficulties of the times is, that these must be the latter days, and that when everything is pulled down, our lord himself will come speedily to build up his kingdom in the right way. deprived of the counsel of fritz and her beloved eva, and of dr. luther--in whom lately she had grown more to confide, although she always deprecates his impetuosity of language--she cannot make up her mind what to think about anything. she has an especial dread of the vehemence of the archdeacon carlstadt; and the mild melancthon is too much like herself in disposition for her to lean on his judgment. nevertheless, this morning, when i went to see them, i found her busily preparing some nourishing soup; which, when i asked her, she confessed was destined for the recusant monk who had become a carpenter. "poor creatures," she said apologetically, "they were accustomed to live well in the cloister, and i should not like them to feel the difference too suddenly." our grandmother is more than eighty now. her form is still erect, although she seldom moves from her arm-chair; and her faculties seem little dimmed, except that she cannot attend to anything for any length of time. sometimes i think old age to her is more like the tender days of early spring, than hard and frosty winter. thekla says it seems as if this life were dawning softly for her into a better; or as if god were keeping her, like moses, with undimmed eyes and strength unabated, till she may have the glimpse of the promised land, and see the deliverance she has so long waited for close at hand. with our children she is as great a favourite as she was with us; she seems to have forgotten her old ways of finding fault; either because she feels less responsibility about the third generation, or because she sees all their little faults through a mellowed light. i notice, too, that she has fallen on quite a different vein of stories from those which used to rivet us. she seems to pass over the legendary lore of her early womanhood, back to the experiences of her own stirring youth and childhood. the mysteries of our grandfather's history, which we vainly sought to penetrate, are all opened to gretchen and the boys. the saints and hermits, whose adventures were our delight, are succeeded by stories of secret hussite meetings to read the scriptures among the forests and mountains of bohemia; of wild retreats in caves, where whole families lived for months in concealment; of heart-rending captures or marvellous escapes. the heroes of my boys will be, not st. christopher and st. george, but hussite heretics! my dear mother often throws in a warning word to the boys, that those were evil times, and that people do not need to lead such wild lives now. but the text makes far more impression on the children than the commentary. our grandmother's own chief delight is still in dr. luther's writings. i have lately read over to her and my father, i know not how many times, his letter from the wartburg, "to the little band of christ at wittemberg," with his commentary accompanying it on the th psalm--"fret not thyself because of evildoers." our dear father is full of the brightest visions. he is persuaded that the whole world is being rapidly set right, and that it matters little, indeed, that his inventions could not be completed, since we are advancing at full speed into the golden age of humanity. thus, from very opposite points and through very different paths, he and my mother arrive at the same conclusion. we have heard from thekla that ulrich has visited dr. luther at the wartburg, where he is residing. i am so glad to know where he is. it is always so difficult to me to think of people without knowing the scene around them. the figure itself seems to become shadowy in the vague, shadowy, unknown world around it. it is this which adds to my distress about fritz. now i can think of dr. luther sitting in that large room in which i waited for the elector with my embroidery, so many years ago--looking down the steep over the folded hills, reaching one behind another till the black pines and the green waving branches fade into lovely blue beneath the golden horizon. and at sunset i seem to see how the shadows creep over the green valleys where we used to play, and the low sun lights up the red stems of the pines. or in the summer noon i see him sitting with his books--great folios, greek, and hebrew, and latin--toiling at that translation of the book of god, which is to be the blessing of all our people; while the warm sunbeams draw out the aromatic scent of the fir-woods, and the breezes bring it in at the open window. or at early morning i fancy him standing by the castle walls, looking down on the towers and distant roofs of eisenach, while the bell of the great convent booms up to him the hour; and he thinks of the busy life beginning in the streets, where once he begged for bread at aunt ursula cotta's door. dear aunt ursula, i wish she could have lived till now, to see the rich harvest an act of loving-kindness will sometimes bring forth. or at night, again, when all sounds are hushed except the murmur of the unseen stream in the valley below, and the sighing of the wind through the forest, and that great battle begins which he has to fight so often with the powers of darkness, and he tries to pray, and cannot lift his heart to god, i picture him opening his casement, and looking down on forest, rook, and meadow, lying dim and lifeless beneath him, glance from these up to god, and re-assure himself with the truth he delights to utter-- "_god lives still!_" feeling, as he gazes, that night is only hiding the sun, not quenching him, and watching till the grey of morning slowly steals up the sky and down into the forest. yes, dr. melancthon has told us how he toils and how he suffers at the wartburg, and how once he wrote, "are my friends forgetting to pray for me, that the conflict is so terrible?" no; gottfried remembers him always among our dearest names of kith and kindred. "but," he said to-day, "we must leave the training of our chief to god." poor, tried, perplexed saint elizabeth! another royal heart is suffering at the wartburg now, another saint is earning his crown through the cross at the old castle home; but not to be canonized in the papal calendar! _december_ . the chapter of the augustinian order in thuringia and misnia has met here within this last month, to consider the question of the irrevocable nature of monastic vows. they have come to the decision that in christ there is neither layman nor monk; that each is free to follow his conscience. _christmas day_, . this has been a great day with us. archdeacon carlstadt announced, some little time since, that he intended, on the approaching feast of the circumcision, to administer the holy sacrament to the laity under the two species of bread and wine. his right to do this having been disputed, he hastened the accomplishment of his purpose, lest it should be stopped by any prohibition from the court. to-day, after his sermon in the city church, in which he spoke of the necessity of replacing the idolatrous sacrifice of the mass by the holy supper, he went to the altar, and, after pronouncing the consecration of the elements in german, he turned towards the people, and said solemnly,-- "whosoever feels heavy laden with the burden of his sins, and hungers and thirsts for the grace of god, let him come and receive the body and blood of the lord." a brief silence followed his words, and then, to my amazement, before any one else stirred, i saw my timid, retiring mother slowly moving up the aisle, leading my father by the hand. others followed; some with reverent, solemn demeanour, others perhaps with a little haste and over-eagerness. and as the last had retired from the altar, the archdeacon, pronouncing the general absolution, added solemnly,-- "go, and sin no more." a few moments' pause succeeded, and then, from many voices here and there, gradually swelling to a full chorus, arose the agnus dei,-- "lamb of god, who takest away the sin of the world, have mercy on us. give us peace." we spent the christmas, as usual, in my father's house. wondering, as i did, at my mother's boldness, i did not like to speak to her on the subject; but, as we sat alone in the afternoon, while our dear father, gottfried, christopher and the children had gone to see the skating on the elbe, she said to me,-- "elsè, i could not help going. it seemed like the voice of our lord himself saying to me, '_thou_ art heavy laden-come!' i never understood it all as i do now. it seemed as if i _saw_ the gospel with my eyes,--saw that the redemption is finished, and that now the feast is spread. i forgot to question whether i repented, or believed, or loved enough. i saw through the ages the body broken and the blood shed for me on calvary; and now i saw the table spread, and heard the welcome, and i could not help taking your father's hand and going up at once." "yes, dear mother, you set the whole congregation the best example!" i said. "i!" she exclaimed. "do you mean that i went up before any one else? what! before all the holy men, and doctors, and the people in authority? elsè, my child, what have i done? but i did not think of myself, or of any one else. i only seemed to hear his voice calling me; and what could i do but go? and, indeed, i cannot care now how it looked! oh, elsè," she continued, "it is worth while to have the world thus agitated to restore this feast again to the church; worth while," she added with a trembling voice, "even to have fritz in prison for this. the blessed lord has sacrificed himself for us, and we are living in the festival. he died for sinners. he spread the feast for the hungry and thirsty. then those who feel their sins most must be not the last but the first to come. i see it all now. that holy sacrament is the gospel for me." _february_ , . the whole town is in commotion. men have appeared among us who say that they are directly inspired from heaven; that study is quite unnecessary--indeed, an idolatrous concession to the flesh and the letter; that it is wasting time and strength to translate the holy scriptures, since, without their understanding a word of greek or hebrew, god has revealed its meaning to their hearts. these men come from zwickau. two of them are cloth-weavers; and one is münzer, who was a priest. they also declare themselves to be prophets. nicholas storck, a weaver, their leader, has chosen twelve apostles and seventy-two disciples, in imitation of our lord. and one of them cried in awful tones, to-day through the streets,-- "woe, woe to the impious governers of christendom! within less then seven years the world shall be made desolate. the turk will overrun the land. no sinner shall remain alive. god will purify the earth by blood, and all the priests will be put to death. the saints will reign. the day of the lord is at hand. woe! woe!" opinions are divided throughout the university and the town about them. the elector himself says he would rather yield up his crown and go through the world a beggar than resist the voice of the lord. dr. melancthon hesitated, and says we must try the spirits whether they be of god. the archdeacon carlstadt is much impressed with them, and from his professorial chair even exhorts the students to abandon the vain pursuits of carnal wisdom, and to return to earn their bread, according to god's ordinance, in the sweat of their brow. the master of the boys' school called, from the open window of the school-room, to the citizens to take back their children. not a few of the students are dispersing, and others are in an excitable state, ready for any tumult. the images have been violently torn from one of the churches and burnt. the monks of the convent of the cordeliers have called the soldiers to their aid against a threatened attack. gottfried and others are persuaded that these men of zwickau are deluded enthusiasts. he says, "the spirit which undervalues the word of god cannot be the spirit of god." but among the firmest opponents of these new doctrines is, to our surprise, our charitable mother. her gentle, lowly spirit seems to shrink from them as with a heavenly instinct. she says, "the spirit of god humbles--does not puff up." when it was reported to us the other day that nicholas storck had seen the angel gabriel in the night, who flew towards him and said to him, "as for thee, thou shalt be seated on my throne!" the mother said,-- "it is new language to the angel gabriel, to speak of _his_ throne. the angels in old times used to speak of the throne of god." and when another said that it was time to sift the chaff from the wheat, and to form a church of none but saints, she said,-- "that would never suit me then. i must stay outside, in the church of redeemed sinners. and did not st. paul himself say, as dr. luther told us, 'sinners, of whom i am chief?'" "but are you not afraid," some one asked her, "of dishonouring god by denying his messengers, if, after all, these prophets should be sent from him?" "i think not," she replied quietly. "until the doctors are sure, i think i cannot displease my saviour by keeping to the old message." my father, however, is much excited about it; he sees no reason why there should not be prophets at wittemberg as well as at jerusalem; and in these wonderful days, he argues, what wonders can be too great to believe? i and many others long exceedingly for dr. luther. i believe, indeed, gottfried is right, but it would be terrible to make a mistake; and dr. luther always seems to see straight to the heart of a thing at once, and storms the citadel, while dr. melancthon is going round and round, studying each point of the fortifications. dr. luther never wavers in opinion in his letters, but warns us most forcibly against these delusions of satan. but then people say he has not seen or heard the "prophets." one letter can be discussed and answered long before another comes, and the living eye and voice are much in such a conflict as this. what chief could lead an army on to battle by letters? _february_ , . our dove of peace has come back to our home; our eva! this evening, when i went over with a message to my mother, to my amazement i saw her sitting with her hand in my father's, quietly reading to him the twenty-third psalm, while my grandmother sat listening, and my mother was contentedly knitting beside them. it seemed as if she had scarcely been absent a day, so quietly had she glided into her old place. it seemed so natural, and yet so like a dream, that the sense of wonder passed from me as it does in dreams, and i went up to her and kissed her forehead. "dear cousin elsè, is it you!" she said. "i intended to have come to you the first thing to-morrow." the dear, peaceful, musical voice, what a calm it shed over the home again! "you see you have all left aunt cotta," she said, with a slight tremulousness in her tone, "so i am come back to be with her always, if she will let me." there were never any protestations of affection between my mother and eva, they understand each other so completely. _february_ . yes, it is no dream. eva has left the convent, and is one of us once more. now that she has resumed all her old ways, i wonder more than ever how we could have got on without her. she speaks as quietly of her escape from the convent, and her lonely journey across the country, as if it were the easiest and most every-day occurrence. she says every one seemed anxious to help her and take care of her. she is very little changed. hers was not a face to change. the old guileless expression is on her lips--the same trustful, truthful light in her dark soft eyes; the calm, peaceful brow, that always reminded one of a sunny, cloudless sky, is calm and bright still; and around it the golden hair, not yet grown from its conventual cutting, clusters in little curls which remind me of her first days with us at eisenach. only all the character of the face seems deepened, i cannot say shadowed, but penetrated with that kind of look which i fancy must always distinguish the face of the saints above from those of the angels,--those who have suffered from those who have only sympathized; that deep, tender, patient, trusting, human look, which is stamped on those who have passed to the heavenly rapturous "_thy will be done_," through the agony of "_not my will, but thine_." at first gretchen met her with the kind of reverent face she has at church; and she asked me afterwards, "is that really the cousin eva in the picture?" but now there is the most familiar intimacy between them, and gretchen confidingly and elaborately expounds to cousin eva all her most secret plans and delights. the boys, also, have a most unusual value for her good opinion, and appear to think her judgment beyond that of ordinary women; for yesterday little fritz was eagerly explaining to her the virtues of a new bow that had been given him, formed in the english fashion. she is very anxious to set nine young nuns, who have embraced the lutheran doctrine, free from nimptschen. gottfried thinks it very difficult, but by no means impracticable in time. meanwhile, what a stormy world our dove has returned to!--the university well-nigh disorganized; the town in commotion; and no german bible yet in any one's hands, by which, as gottfried says, the claims of these new prophets might be tested. yet it does not seem to depress eva. she says it seems to her like coming out of the ark into a new world; and, no doubt, noah did not find everything laid out in order for him. she is quite on my mother's side about the prophets. she says, the apostles preached not themselves, but christ jesus the lord. if the zwickau prophets preach him, they preach nothing new; and if they preach themselves, neither god nor the angel gabriel gave them that message. our great sorrow is fritz's continued imprisonment. at first we felt sure he would escape, but every month lessens our hopes, until we scarcely dare speak of him except in our prayers. yet daily, together with his deliverance, gottfried and i pray for the return of dr. luther, and for the prosperous completion of his translation of the german bible, which gottfried believes will be the greatest boon dr. luther has given, or can ever give, to the german people, and through them to them christendom. _saturday_, _march_ , . the great warm heart is beating amongst us once more! dr. luther is once more dwelling quietly in the augustinian cloister, which he left for worms a year ago. what changes since then! he left us amid our tears and vain entreaties not to trust his precious life to the treacherous safe-conduct which had entrapped john huss to the stake. he returns unscathed and triumphant--the defender of the good cause before emperor, prelates, and princes--the hero of our german people. he left citizens and students for the most part trembling at the daring of his words and deeds. he returns to find students and burghers impetuously and blindly rushing on the track he opened, beyond his judgment and convictions. he left, the foremost in the attack, timidly followed as he hurried forward, braving death alone. he returns to recall the scattered forces, dispersed and divided in wild and impetuous pursuit. will, then, his voice be as powerful to recall and reorganize as it was to urge forward? he wrote to the elector, on his way from the wartburg, disclaiming his protection--declaring that he returned to the flock god had committed to him at wittemberg, called and constrained by god himself, and under mightier protection than that of an elector! "the sword," he said, "could not defend the truth. the mightiest are those whose faith is mightiest. relying on his master, christ, and on him alone, he came." gottfried says it is fancy, but already it seems to me i see a difference in the town--less bold, loud talking, than the day before yesterday; as in a family of eager, noisy boys, whose father is amongst them again. but after to-morrow, we shall be able to judge better. he is to preach in the city pulpit. _monday_, _march_ , . we have heard him preach once more. thank god, those days in the wilderness, as he called it, have surely not been lost days for dr. luther. as he stood again in the pulpit, many among the crowded congregation could not refrain from shedding tears of joy. in that familiar form and truthful, earnest face, we saw the man who had stood unmoved before the emperor and all the great ones of the empire--alone, upholding the truth of god. many of us saw, moreover, with even deeper emotion, the sufferer who, during those last ten months, had stood before an enemy more terrible than pope or emperor, in the solitude of the wartburg; and while his own heart and flesh were often well-nigh failing in the conflict, had never failed to carry on the struggle bravely and triumphantly for us his flock; sending masterly replies to the university of paris; smiting the lying traffic with indulgences, by one noble remonstrance, from the trembling hands of the archbishop of mainz; writing letter after letter of consolation or fatherly counsel to the little flock of christ at wittemberg; and, through all, toiling at that translation of the word of god, which is the great hope of our country. but older, tenderer, more familiar associations, mastered all the others when we heard his voice again--the faithful voice that had warned and comforted us so long in public and in private. to others, dr. luther might be the hero of worms, the teacher of germany, the st. george who had smitten the dragon of falsehood: to us he was the true, affectionate pastor; and many of us, i believe, heard little of the first words of his sermon, for the mere joy of hearing his voice again, as the clear, deep tones, vibrated through the silent church. he began with commending our faith. he said we had made much progress during his absence. but he went on to say, "we must have more than faith--we must have love. if a man with a sword in his hand happens to be alone, it matters little whether he keep it in the scabbard or not; but if he is in the midst of a crowd, he must take care to hold it so as not to hurt any one. "a mother begins with giving her infant milk. would it live if she gave it first meat and wine? "but, thou, my friend, hast, perhaps had enough of milk! it way be well for thee. yet let thy weaker, younger brother take it. the time was when thou also couldst have taken nothing else. "see the sun! it brings us two things--light and heat. the rays of light beam directly on us. no king is powerful enough to intercept those keen, direct, swift rays. but heat is radiated back to us from every side. thus, like the light, faith should ever be direct and inflexible; but love, like the heat, should radiate on all sides, and meekly adapt itself to the wants of all. "the abolition of the mass, you say," he continued, "is according to scripture. i agree with you. but in abolishing it, what regard had you for order and decency? you should have offered fervent prayers to god, public authority should have been applied to, and every one would have seen then that the thing came from god. "the mass is a bad thing; god is its enemy: it ought to be abolished; and i would that throughout the whole world it were superceded by the supper of the gospel. but let none tear any one away from it with violence. the matter ought to be committed to god. it is his word that must act, and not we. and wherefore? do you say? because i do not hold the hearts of men in my hand as the potter holds the clay in his. our work is to speak; god will act. let us preach. the rest belongs to him. if i employ force, what do i gain? changes in demeanour, outward shows, grimaces, shams, hypocrisies. but what becomes of sincerity of heart, of faith, of christian love? all is wanting where these are wanting; and for the rest i would not give the stalk of a pear. "what we want is the heart; and to win that, we must preach the gospel. then the word will drop to-day into one heart, to-morrow into another, and will so work that each will forsake the mass. god effects more than you and i and the whole world combined could attempt. he secures the heart; and when that is won, all is won. "i say not this in order to re-establish the mass. since it has been put down, in god's name let it remain so. but ought it to have been put down in the way it has been? st. paul, on arriving at the great city of athens, found altars there erected to false gods. he passed from one to another, made his own reflections on all, but touched none. but he returned peaceably to the forum, and declared to the people that all those gods were mere idols. this declaration laid hold on the hearts of some, and the idols fell without paul's touching them. i would preach, i would speak, i would write, but i would lay constraint on no one; for faith is a voluntary thing. see what i have done! i rose in opposition to the pope, to indulgences, and the papists; but i did so without tumult or violence. i pressed before all things the word of god; i preached, i wrote; i did nothing else. and while i was asleep, or seated at table in conversation with amsdorf and melancthon, over our wittemberg beer, that word which i had been preaching was working, and subverted the popedom as never before it was damaged by assault of prince or emperor. i did nothing; all was done by the word. had i sought to appeal to force, germany might by this time have been steeped in blood. and what would have been the result? ruin and desolation of soul and body. i therefore kept myself quiet, and left the word to force its own way through the world. know you what, the devil thinks when he sees people employ violence in disseminating the gospel among men? seated with his arms crossed behind hell fire, satan says, with a malignant look and hideous leer, 'ah, but these fools are wise men, indeed, to do my work for me!' but when he sees the word go forth and engage alone on the field of battle, then he feels ill at ease; his knees smite against each other, he shudders and swoons away with terror." quietly and reverently, not with loud debatings and noisy protestations of what they would do next, the congregation dispersed. the words of forbearance came with such weight from that daring, fearless heart, which has braved the wrath of popedom and empire above for god, and still braves excommunication and ban! _wednesday_, _march_ . yesterday again dr. luther preached. he earnestly warned us against the irreverent participation in the holy sacrament. "it is not the external eating, which makes the christian," he said; "it is the internal and spiritual eating, which is the work of faith, and without which all external things are mere empty shows and vain grimaces. now this faith consists in firmly believing that jesus christ is the son of god; that having charged himself with our sins and our iniquities, and having borne them on the cross, he is himself the sole, the all-sufficient expiation; that he ever appears before god; that he reconciles us to the father, and that he has given us the sacrament of his body in order to strengthen our faith in that unutterable mercy. if i believe these things, god is my defender: with him on my side, i brave sin, death, hell, and demons; they can do me no harm, nor even touch a hair of my head. this spiritual bread is the consolation of the afflicted, the cure of the sick, the life of the dying, food to the hungry, the treasure of the poor. he who is not grieved by his sins, ought not, then, to approach this altar. what would he do there? ah, did our conscience accuse us, did our heart feel crushed at the thought of our shortcomings, we could not then lightly approach the holy sacrament." there were more among us than the monk gabriel didymus (a few days since one of the most vehement of the violent faction, now sobered and brought to his right mind), that could say as we listened, "verily it is as the voice of an angel." but, thank god, it is not the voice of an angel, but a human voice vibrating to every feeling of our hearts--the voice of our own true, outspoken martin luther, who will, we trust, now remain with us to build up with the same word which has already cleared away so much. and yet i cannot help feeling as if his absence had done its work for us as well as his return. if the hands of violence can be arrested now, i cannot but rejoice they have done just as much as they have. now, let dr. luther's principle stand. abolish nothing that is not directly prohibited by the holy scriptures. _march_ . dr. luther's eight discourses are finished, and quiet is restored to wittemberg. the students resume their studies, the boys return to school; each begins with a lowly heart once more the work of his calling. no one has been punished. luther would not have force employed either against the superstitious or the unbelieving innovators. "liberty," he says, "is of the essence of faith." with his tender regard for the sufferings of others we do not wonder so much at this. but we all wonder far more at the gentleness of his words. they say the bravest soldiers make the best nurses of their wounded comrades. luther's hand seems to have laid aside the battle-axe, and coming among his sick and wounded and perplexed people here, he ministers to them gently as the kindest woman--as our own mother could, who is herself won over to love and revere him with all her heart. not a bitter word has escaped him, although the cause these disorders are risking is the cause for which he has risked his life. and there are no more tumults in the streets. the frightened cordelier monks may carry on their ceremonies without terror, or the aid of soldiery. all the warlike spirits are turned once more from raging against small external things, to the great battle beginning everywhere against bondage and superstition. dr. luther himself has engaged dr. melancthon's assistance in correcting and perfecting the translation of the new testament, which he made in the solitude of the wartburg. their friendship seems closer than ever. christopher's press is in the fullest activity, and all seem full of happy, orderly occupation again. sometimes i tremble when i think how much we seem to depend on dr. luther, lest we should make an idol of him; but thekla, who is amongst us again, said to me when i expressed this fear,-- "ah, dear elsè, that is the old superstition. when god gives us a glorious summer and good harvest, are we to receive it coldly and enjoy it tremblingly, lest he should send us a bad season next year to prevent our being too happy? if he sends the dark days, will he not also give us a lamp for our feet through them?" and even our gentle mother said,-- "i think if god gives us a staff, elsè, he _intends_ us to lean on it." "and when he takes it away," said eva, "i think he is sure to give us his own hand instead! i think what grieves god is, when we use his gifts for what he did _not_ intend them to be; as if, for instance, we were to _plant_ our staff, instead of _leaning_ on it; or to set it up as an image and adore it, instead of resting on it and adoring god. _then_, i suppose, we might have to learn that our idol was not in itself a support, or a living thing at all, but only a piece of lifeless wood." "yes," said thekla decidedly, "when god gives us friends, i believe he means us to love them as much as we can. and when he gives us happiness, i am sure he means us to enjoy it as much as we can. and when he gives soldiers a good general, he means them to trust and follow him. and when he gives us back dr. luther and cousin eva," she added, drawing eva's hand from her work and covering it with kisses, "i am quite sure he means us to welcome them with all our hearts, and feel that we can never make enough of them. o elsè," she added, smiling, "you will never, i am afraid, be set quite free from the old fetters. every now and then we shall hear them clanking about you, like the chains of the family ghost of the gersdorfs. you will never quite believe, dear good sister, that god is not better pleased with you when you are sad than when you are happy." "he is often nearest," said eva softly, "when we are sad." and thekla's lip quivered and her eyes filled with tears as she replied in a different tone,-- "i think i know that too, cousin eva." poor child, she has often had to prove it. her heart must often ache when she thinks of the perilous position of bertrand de crèqui among his hostile kindred in flanders. and it is therefore she cannot bear a shadow of a doubt to be thrown on the certainty of their re-union. the evangelical doctrine is enthusiastically welcomed at antwerp and other cities of the low countries. but, on the other hand, the civil and ecclesiastical authorities oppose it vehemently, and threaten persecution. _may_, . dr. luther has had an interview with mark stübner, the schoolmaster cellarius, and others of the zwickau prophets and their disciples. he told them plainly that he believed their violent, self-willed, fanatical proceedings were suggested, not by the holy spirit of love and truth, but by the spirit of lies and malice. yet he is said to have listened to them with quietness. cellarius, they say, foamed and gnashed his teeth with rage, but stübner showed more self-restraint. however, the prophets have all left wittemberg, and quiet is restored. a calm has come down on the place, and on every home in it--the calm of order and subjection instead of the restlessness of self-will. and all has been accomplished through the presence and the words of the man whom god has sent to be our leader, and whom we acknowledge. not one act of violence has been done since he came. he would suffer no constraint either on the consciences of the disciples of the "prophets," or on those of the old superstition. he relies, as we all do, on the effect of the translation of the bible into german, which is now quietly and rapidly advancing. every week the doctors meet in the augustinian convent, now all but empty, to examine the work done, and to consult about the difficult passages. when once this is accomplished, they believe god will speak through those divine pages direct to all men's hearts, and preachers and doctors may retire to their lowly subordinate places. xxiii. atlantis' story. chriemhild and i have always been the least clever of the family, and with much less that is distinctive about us. indeed, i do not think there is anything particularly characteristic about us, except our being twins. thekla says we are pure saxons, and have neither of us anything of the impetuous czech or bohemian blood; which may so far be good for me, because conrad has not a little of the vehement swiss character in him. every one always spoke of chriemhild and me, and thought of us together; and when they called us the beauties of the family, i think they chiefly meant that we looked pleasant together by contrast. thekla says god sends the flowers into the world as twins; contrasting with each other just as we did,--the dark-eyed violets with the fair primroses; golden gorse, and purple heather. chriemhild she used sometimes to call sister primrose, and me sister violet. chriemhild, however, is beautiful by herself without me,--so tall, and fair, and placid, and commanding-looking, with her large grey eyes, her calm broad brow, and her erect full figure, which always made her gentle manner seem condescending like a queen's. but i am nothing without chriemhild; only people used to like to see my small slight figure, and my black eyes and hair, beside hers. i wonder what conrad winkelried's people will think of me in that far-off mountainous switzerland whither he is to take me! he is sure they will all love me; but how can i tell? sometimes my heart flutters a great deal to think of leaving home, and elsè and the dear mother, and all. it is true chriemhild seemed to find it quite natural when the time came, but she is so different. every one was sure to be pleased with chriemhild. and i am so accustomed to love and kindness. they all know me so well here, and how much less clever i am than the rest, that they all bear with me tenderly. even thekla, who is often a little vehement, is always gentle with me, although she may laugh a little sometimes when i say anything more foolish than usual. i am so often making discoveries of things that every one else knew long since. i do not think i am so much afraid on my own account, because i have so little right to expect anything, and always get so much more than i deserve from our dear heavenly father and from every one. only on conrad's account i should like to be a little wiser, because he knows so many languages, and is so very clever. when i spoke to elsè about it once, she smiled and said she had the same kind of fears once, but if we ask him, god will always give us just the wisdom we want day by day. it is part of the "daily bread," she said. and certainly elsè is not learned, and yet every one loves her, and she does so much good in a quiet way. but then, although she is not learned, she seems to me wise in little things. and she used to write a chronicle when she was younger than i am. she told me so, although i have never seen it. i have been thinking that perhaps it is writing the chronicle that has made her wise, and therefore i intend to try to write one. but as at present i can think of nothing to say of my own, i will begin by copying a narrative conrad lent me to read a few days since, written by a young swiss student, a friend of his, who has just come to wittemberg from st. gall, where his family live. his name is johann kessler, and conrad thinks him very good and diligent. "_copy of johann kessler's narrative._ "as we were journeying towards wittemberg to study the holy scriptures, at jena we encountered a fearful tempest, and after many inquiries in the town for an inn where we might pass the night, we could find none, either by seeking or asking; no one would give us a night's lodging. for it was carnival time, when people have little care for pilgrims and strangers. so we went forth again from the town, to try if we could find a village where we might rest for the night. "at the gate, however, a respectable-looking man met us, and spoke kindly to us, and asked whither we journeyed so late at night, since in no direction could we reach house or inn where we could find shelter before dark night set in. it was, moreover, a road easy to lose; he counselled us, therefore, to remain all night where we were. "we answered,-- "'dear father, we have been at all the inns, and they sent us from one to another; everywhere they refused us lodging; we have, therefore, no choice but to journey further.' "then he asked if we had also inquired at the sign of the black bear. "then we said,-- "'we have not seen it. friend, where is it?' "then he led us a little out of the town. and when we saw the black bear, lo, whereas all the other landlords had refused us shelter, the landlord there came himself out at the gate to receive us, bade us welcome, and led us into the room. "there we found a man sitting alone at the table, and before him lay a little book. he greeted us kindly, asked us to draw near, and to place ourselves by him at the table. for our shoes (may we be excused for writing it) were so covered with mud and dirt, that we were ashamed to enter boldly into the chamber, and had seated ourselves on a little bench in a corner near the door. "then he asked us to drink, which we could not refuse. when we saw how cordial and friendly he was, we seated ourselves near him at his table as he had asked us, and ordered wine that we might ask him to drink in return. we thought nothing else but that he was a trooper, as he sat there, according to the custom of the country, in hosen and tunic, without armour, a sword by his side, his right hand on the pommel of his sword, his left grasping its hilt. his eyes were black and deep, flashing and beaming like a star, so that they could not well be looked at. "soon he began to ask what was our native country. but he himself replied,-- "'you are switzers. from what part of switzerland?" "we answered,-- "'from st gall.' "then he said,-- "if you are going hence to wittemberg, as i hear, you will find good fellow-countrymen there, namely, doctor hieronymus schurf, and his brother, doctor augustin.' "we said,-- "'we have letters to them.' and then we inquired, "'sir, can you inform us if martin luther is now at wittemberg, or if not, where he is?' "he said,-- "'i have reliable information that luther is not now at wittemberg. he will, however, soon be there. philip melancthon is there now; he teaches greek, and others teach hebrew. i counsel you earnestly to study both; for both are necessary in order to understand the holy scriptures.' "we said,-- "'god be praised! for if god spare our lives we will not depart till we see and hear that man; since on his account we have undertaken this journey, because we understood that he purposes to abolish the priesthood, together with the mass, as an unfounded worship. for as we have from our youth been destined by our parents to be priests, we would know what kind of instruction he will give us, and on what authority he seeks to effect such an object.' "after these words, he asked,-- "'where have you studied hitherto?' "answer, 'at basel.' "then he said, 'how goes it at basel? is erasmus of rotterdam still there, and what is he doing?" "'sir,' said we, 'we know not that things are going on there otherwise than well. also, erasmus is there, but what he is occupied with is unknown to any one, for he keeps himself very quiet, and in great seclusion.' "this discourse seemed to us very strange in the trooper; that he should know how to speak of both the schurfs, of philip, and erasmus, and also of the study of hebrew and greek. "moreover, he now and then used latin words, so that we deemed he must be more than a common trooper. "'friend,' he asked, 'what do they think in switzerland of luther.' "'sir, there, as elsewhere, there are various opinions. many cannot enough exalt him, and praise god that he has made his truth plain through him, and laid error bare; many, on the other hand, and among these more especially the clergy, condemn him as a reprobate heretic.' "then he said, 'i can easily believe it is the clergy that speak thus.' "with such conversation we grew quite confidential, so that my companion took up the little book that lay before him, and looked at it. it was a hebrew psalter. then he laid it quickly down again, and the trooper drew it to himself. and my companion said, 'i would give a finger from my hand to understand that language.' "he answered, 'you will soon comprehend it, if you are diligent; i also desire to understand it better, and practise myself daily in it.' "meantime the day declined, and it became quite dark, when the host came to the table. "when he understood our fervent desire and longing to see martin luther, he said,-- "'good friends, if you had been here two days ago, you would have had your wish, for he sat here at table, and' (pointing with his finger) 'in that place.' "it vexed and fretted us much that we should have lingered on the way; and we vented our anger on the muddy and wretched roads that had delayed us. "but we added,-- "'it rejoices us, however, to sit in the house and at the table where he sat.' "thereat the host laughed, and went out at the door. "after a little while, he called me to come to him at the door of the chamber. i was alarmed, fearing i had done something unsuitable, or that i had unwittingly given some offence. but the host said to me,-- "since i perceive that you so much wish to see and hear luther,--that is he who is sitting with you.' "i thought he was jesting, and said,-- "'ah, sir host, you would befool me and my wishes with a false image of luther!' "he answered,-- "'it is certainly he. but do not seem as if you knew this.' "i could not believe it; but i went back into the room, and longed to tell my companion what the host had disclosed to me. at last i turned to him, and whispered softly,-- "'the host has told me that is luther.' "he, like me, could not at once believe it, and said,-- "'he said, perhaps, it was hutten, and thou hast misunderstood him.' "and because the stranger's bearing and military dress suited hutten better than luther, i suffered myself to be persuaded he had said, 'it is hutten,' since the two names had a somewhat similar sound. what i said further, therefore, was on the supposition that i was conversing with huldrich ab hutten, the knight. "while this was going on, two merchants arrived, who intended also to remain the night; and after they had taken off their outer coats and their spurs, one laid down beside him an unbound book. "then he the host had (as i thought) called martin luther, asked what the book was. "'it is dr. martin luther's exposition of certain gospels and epistles, just published. have you not yet seen it?' "said martin, 'it will soon be sent to me.' "then said the host,-- "'place yourselves at table; we will eat.' "but we besought him to excuse us, and give us a place apart. but he said,-- "'good friends, seat yourselves at the table. i will see that you are welcome.' "when martin heard that he said,-- "'come, come, i will settle the score with the host by-and-by.' "during the meal, martin said many pious and friendly words, so that the merchants and we were dumb before him, and heeded his discourse far more than our food. among other things, he complained, with a sigh, how the princes and nobles were gathered at the diet at nürnberg on account of god's word, many difficult matters, and the oppression of the german nation, and yet seemed to have no purpose but to bring about better times by means of tourneys, sleigh-rides, and all kinds of vain, courtly pleasures; whereas the fear of god and christian prayer would accomplish so much more. "'yet these,' said he sadly, 'are our christian princes!' "'further, he said, 'we must hope that the evangelical truth will bring forth better fruit in our children and successors--who will never have been poisoned by papal error, but will be planted in the pure truth and word of god--than in their parents, in whom these errors are so deeply rooted that they are hard to eradicate.' "after this, the merchants gave their opinion, and the elder of them said,-- "'i am a simple, unlearned layman, and have no special understanding of these matters; but as i look at the thing, i say, luther must either be an angel from heaven or a devil from hell. i would gladly give ten florins to be confessed by him, for i believe he could and would enlighten my conscience.' "meantime the host came secretly to us and said,-- "'martin has paid for your supper.' "this pleased us much, not on account of the gold or the meal, but because that man had made us his guests. "after supper, the merchants rose and went into the stable to look after their horses. meanwhile martin remained in the room with us, and we thanked him for his kindness and generosity, and ventured to say we took him to be huldrich ab hutten. but he said,-- "'i am not he.' "thereon the host came, and martin said,-- "'i have to-night become a nobleman, for these switzers take me for huldrich ab hutten.' "and then he laughed at the jest, and said,-- "'they take me for hutten, and you take me for luther. soon i shall become markolfus the clown.' "and after this he took a tall beer-glass, and said, according to the custom of the country,-- "'switzers, drink after me a friendly draught to each other's welfare.' "but as i was about to take the glass from him, he changed it, and ordered, instead, a glass of wine, and said,-- "'beer is a strange and unwonted beverage to you. drink the wine.' "thereupon he stood up, threw his mantle over his shoulder, and took leave. he offered us his hand, and said,-- "'when you come to wittemberg, greet dr. hieronymus schurf from me.' "we said,-- "'gladly would we do that, but what shall we call you, that he may understand the greeting?' "he said,-- "'say nothing more than, _he who is coming_ sends you greeting. he will at once understand the words.' "thus he took leave of us, and retired to rest. "afterwards the merchants returned into the room, and desired the host to bring them more to drink, whilst they had much talk with him as to who this guest really was. "the host confessed he took him to be luther; whereupon they were soon persuaded, and regretted that they had spoken so unbecomingly before him, and said they would rise early on the following morning, before he rode off, and beg him not to be angry with them, or to think evil of them, since they had not known who he was. "this happened as they wished, and they found him the next morning in the stable. "but martin said, 'you said last night at supper you would gladly give ten florins to confess to luther. when you confess yourselves to him you will know whether i am martin luther or not.' "further than this he did not declare who he was, but soon afterwards mounted and rode off to wittemberg. "on the same day we came to naumburg, and as we entered a village (it lies under a mountain, and i think the mountain is called orlamunde, and the village nasshausen), a stream was flowing through it which was swollen by the rain of the previous day, and had carried away part of the bridge, so that no one could ride over it. in the same village we lodged for the night, and it happened that we again found in the inn the two merchants; so they, for luther's sake, insisted on making us their guests at this inn. "on the saturday after, the day before the first sunday in lent, we went to dr. hieronymus schurf, to deliver our letters of introduction. when we were called into the room, lo and behold! there we found the trooper martin, as before at jena; and with him were philip melancthon, justus jonas, nicolaus amsdorf, and dr. augustin schurf, who were relating to him what had happened at wittemberg during his absence. he greeted us, and, laughing, pointed with his finger and said, 'this is philip melancthon, of whom i spoke to you.'" * * * * * i have copied this to begin to improve myself, that i may be a better companion for conrad, and also because in after years i think we shall prize anything which shows how our martin luther won the hearts of strangers, and how, when returning to wittemberg an excommunicated and outlawed man, with all the care of the evangelical doctrine on him, he had a heart at leisure for little acts of kindness and words of faithful counsel. what a blessing it is for me, who can understand nothing of the "theologia teutsch," even in german, and never could have learned latin like eva, that dr. luther's sermons are so plain to me, great and learned as he is. chriemhild and i always understood them; and although we could never talk much to others, at night in our bed-room we used to speak to each other about them, and say how very simple religion seemed when he spoke of it,--just to believe in our blessed lord jesus christ, who died for our sins, and to love him, and to do all we can to make every one around us happier and better. what a blessing for people who are not clever, like chriemhild and me, to have been born in days when we are taught that religion is faith and love, instead of all of those complicated rules and lofty supernatural virtues which people used to call religion. and yet they say faith and love and humility are more really hard than all the old penances and good works. but that must be, i think, to people who have never heard, as we have from dr. luther, so much about god to make us love him; or to people who have more to be proud of than chriemhild and i and so find it more difficult to think little of themselves. xxiv. eva's story. wittemberg, _october_, . how strange it seemed at first to be moving freely about in the world once more, and to come back to the old home at wittemberg! very strange to find the places so little changed, and the people so much. the little room where elsè and i used to sleep, with scarcely an article of furniture altered, except that thekla's books are there instead of elsè's wooden crucifix; and the same view over the little garden, with its pear-tree full of white blossoms, to the elbe with bordering oaks and willows, all then in their freshest delicate early green; while the undulations of the level land faded in soft blues to the horizon. but, unlike the convent, all the changes in the people seemed to have been wrought by the touch of life rather than by that of death. in elsè's own home across the street, the ringing of those sweet childish voices, so new to me, and yet familiar with echoes of old tones and looks of our own well-remembered early days! and on elsè herself the change seemed only such as that which develops the soft tints of spring into the green of shadowing leaves. christopher has grown from the self-assertion of boyhood into the strength and protecting kindness of manhood. uncle cotta's blindness seems to dignify him and make him the central object of every one's tender, reverent care, while his visions grow brighter in the darkness, and more placid on account of his having no responsibility as to fulfilling them. he seems to me a kind of hallowing presence in the family, calling out every one's sympathy and kindness, and pathetically reminding us by his loss of the preciousness of our common mercies. on the grandmother's heart the light is more like dawn than sunset--so fresh, and soft, and full of hope her old age seems. the marks of fretting, daily anxiety, and care have been smoothed from dear aunt cotta's face; and although a deep shadow rests there often when she thinks of fritz, i feel sure sorrow is not now to her the shadow of a mountain of divine wrath, but the shadow of a cloud which brings blessing and hides light, which the sun of love drew forth, and the rainbow of promise consecrates. yet he has the place of the first-born in her heart. with the others, though not forgotten, i think his place is partly filled--but never with her. elsè's life is very full. atlantis never knew him as the elder ones did; and thekla, dearly as she learned to love him during his little sojourn at wittemberg, has her heart filled with the hopes of her future, or at times overwhelmed with its fears. with all it almost seems he would have in some measure to make a place again, if he were to return. but with aunt cotta the blank is as utterly a blank, and a sacred place kept free from all intrusion, as if it were a chamber of her dead, kept jealously locked and untouched since the last day he stood living there. yet surely he is not dead; i say so to myself and to her when she speaks of it, a thousand times. why, then, does this hopeless feeling creep over me when i think of him? it seems so impossible to believe he ever can be amongst us any more. if it would please god only to send us some little word! but since that letter from priest ruprecht haller, not a syllable has reached us. two months since, christopher went to this priest's village in franconia, and lingered some days in the neighbourhood, making inquiries in every direction around the monastery where he is. but he could hear nothing, save that in the autumn of last year, the little son of a neighbouring knight, who was watching his mother's geese on the outskirts of the forest near the convent, used to hear the sounds of a man's voice singing from the window of her tower where the convent prison is. the child used to linger near the spot to listen to the songs, which, he said, were so rich and deep--sacred, like church hymns, but more joyful than anything he ever heard at church. he thought they were easter hymns; but since one evening in last october he has never heard them, although he has often listened. nearly a year since now! yet nothing can silence those resurrection hymns in his heart! aunt cotta's great comfort is the holy sacrament. nothing, she says, lifts up her heart like that. other symbols, or writings, or sermons bring before her, she says, some part of truth; but the holy supper brings the lord himself before her. not one truth about him, or another, but _himself_; not one act of his holy life alone, nor even his atoning death, but his very person, human and divine,--_himself_ living, dying, conquering death, freely bestowing life. she has learned that to attend that holy sacrament is not, as she once thought, to perform a good work, which always left her more depressed than before with the feeling how unworthy and coldly she had done it; but to look off from self to him who finished _the good work_ of redemption for us. as dr. melancthon says,-- "just as looking at the cross is not the doing of a good work, but simply contemplating a sign which recalls to us the death of christ; "just as looking at the sun is not the doing of a good work, but simply contemplating a sign which recalls to us christ and his gospel; "so participating at the lord's table is not the doing of a good work, but simply the making use of a sign which brings to mind the grace that has been bestowed on us by christ." "but here lies the difference; symbols discovered by man simply recall what they signify, whereas the signs given by god not only recall the things, but further assure the heart with respect to the will of god." "as the sight of a cross does not justify, so the mass does not justify. as the sight of a cross is not a sacrifice, either for our sins or for the sins of others, so the mass is not a sacrifice." "there is but one sacrifice, there is but one satisfaction--jesus christ. beyond him there is nothing of the kind." i have been trying constantly to find a refuge for the nine evangelical nuns i left at nimptschen, but hitherto in vain. i do not, however, by any means despair. i have advised them now to write themselves to dr. luther. _october_, . the german new testament is published at last. on september the st it appeared; and that day, happening to be aunt cotta's birthday, when she came down among us in the morning, gottfried reichenbach met her, and presented her with two large folio volumes in which it is printed, in the name of the whole family. since then one volume always lies on a table in the general sitting-room, and one in the window of aunt cotta's bed-room. often now she comes down in the morning with a beaming face, and tells us of some verse she has discovered. uncle cotta calls it her diamond-mine, and says, "the little mother has found the el dorado after all!" one morning it was,-- "cast all your care on him, for he careth for you;' and that lasted her many days." to-day it was,-- "tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope; and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of god is shed abroad in our hearts by the holy ghost, which is given unto us." "eva," she said, "that seems to me so simple. it seems to me to mean, that when sorrow comes, then the great thing we have to do is, to see we do not lose hold of _patience_; she seems linked to all the other graces, and to lead them naturally into the heart, hand in hand, one by one. eva, dear child," she added, "is that what is meant?" i said how often those words had cheered me, and how happy it is to think that all the while these graces are illumining the darkness of the heart, the dark hours are passing away, until all at once hope steals to the casement and withdraws the shutters; and the light which has slowly been dawning all the time streams into the heart, "the love of god shed abroad by the holy ghost." "but," rejoined aunt cotta, "we cannot ourselves bring in experience, or reach the hand of hope, or open the window to let in the light of love; we can only look up to god, keep firm hold of patience, and _she will bring all the rest_." "and yet," i said, "_peace_ comes before _patience_, peace with god through faith in him who was delivered for our offences. all these graces do not lead us up to god. we have access to him first, and in his presence we learn the rest." yes, indeed, the changes in the wittemberg world since i left it, have been wrought by the hand of life, and not by that of death, or time, which is his shadow. for have not the brightest been wrought by the touch of the life himself? it is god, not time, that has mellowed our grandmother's character; it is god and not time that has smoothed the careworn wrinkles from aunt cotta's brow. it is life and not death that has all but emptied the augustinian convent, sending the monks back to their places in the world, to serve god and proclaim his gospel. it is the water of life that is flowing through home after home in the channel of dr. luther's german testament and bringing forth fruits of love, and joy, and peace. and we know it is life and not death which is reigning in that lonely prison, wherein the child heard the resurrection hymns, and that is triumphing now in the heart of him who sang them, wherever he may be! xxv. thekla's story. _october_, . once more the letters come regularly from flanders; and in most ways their tidings are joyful. nowhere throughout the world, bertrand writes, does the evangelical doctrine find such an eager reception as there. the people in the great free cities have been so long accustomed to judge for themselves, and to speak their minds freely. the augustinian monks who studied at wittemberg, took back the gospel with them to antwerp, and preached it openly in their church, which became so thronged with eager hearers, that numbers had to listen outside the doors. it is true, bertrand says, that the prior and one or two of the monks have been arrested, tried at brussels, and silenced; but the rest continue undauntedly to preach as before, and the effect of the persecution has been only to deepen the interest of the citizens. the great new event which is occupying us all now, however, is the publication of dr. luther's new testament. chriemhild writes that is the greatest boon to her, because being afraid to trust herself to say much, she simply reads, and the peasants seem to understand that book better than anything she can say about it; or even, if at any time they come to anything which perplexes them, they generally find that by simply reading on it grows quite clear. also, she writes, ulrich reads it every evening to all the servants, and it seems to bind the household together wonderfully. they feel that at last they have found something inestimably precious, which is yet no "privilege" of man or class, but the common property of all. in many families at wittemberg the book is daily read, for there are few of those who can read at all who cannot afford a copy, since the price is but a florin and a half. new hymns also are beginning to spring up among us. we are no more living on the echo of old songs. a few days since a stranger from the north sang before dr. luther's windows, at the augustinian convent, a hymn beginning,-- "es ist das heil uns kommen her." dr. luther desired that it might be sung again. it was a response from prussia to the glad tidings which have gone forth far and wide through his words! he said "he thanked god with a full heart." the delight of having eva among us once more is so great! her presence seems to bring peace with it. it is not what she says or does, but what she is. it is more like the effect of music than anything else i know. a quiet seems to come over one's heart from merely being with her. no one seems to fill so little space, or make so little noise in the world as eva, when she is there; and yet when she is gone, it is as if the music and the light had passed from the place. everything about her always seems so in tune. her soft, quiet voice, her gentle, noiseless movements, her delicate features, the soft curve of her cheek, those deep loving eyes, of which one never seems able to remember anything but that eva herself looks through them into your heart. all so different from me, who can scarcely ever come into a room without upsetting something, or disarranging some person, and can seldom enter on a conversation without upsetting some one's prejudices, or grating on some one's feelings! it seems to me sometimes as if god did indeed lead eva, as the psalm says, "by his eye;" as if he had trained her to what she is by the direct teaching of his gracious voice, instead of by the rough training of circumstances. and nevertheless, she never makes me feel her hopelessly above me. the light is not like a star, which makes one feel "how peaceful it must be there, in these heights," but brings little light upon our path. it is like a lowly sunbeam coming down among us, and making us warm and bright. she always makes me think of the verse about the saint who was translated silently to heaven, because he had "_walked with god_." yes, i am sure that is her secret. only i have a malicious feeling that i should like to see her for once thoroughly tossed out of her calm, just to be quite sure it is god's peace, and not some natural or fairy gift, or a stoical impassiveness from the "theologia teutsch." sometimes, i fancy for an instant whether it is not a little too much with eva, as if she were "translated" already; as if she had passed to _the other side_ of the deepest earthly joy and sorrow, at least as regards herself. certainly she has not as regards others. her sympathy is indeed no condescending alms, flung from the other side of the flood, no pitying glance cast down on grief she feels, but could never share. have i not seen her lip quiver, when i spoke of the dangers around bertrand, even when my voice was firm, and felt her tears on my face when she drew me to her heart. _december_, . that question at last is answered! i _have_ seen cousin eva moved out of her calm, and feel at last quite sure she is not "translated" yet. yesterday evening we were all sitting in the family room. our grandmother was dozing by the stove. eva and my mother were busy at the table, helping atlantis in preparing the dresses for her wedding, which is to be early in next year. i was reading to my father from dr. melancthon's new book, "the common places," (which all learned people say is so much more elegant and beautifully written than dr. luther's works, but which is to me only just a composed book, and not like all dr. luther's writings, a voice from the depths of a heart.) i was feeling like my grandmother, a little sleepy, and, indeed, the whole atmosphere around us seemed drowsy and still, when our little maid, lottchen, opened the door with a frightened expression, and before she could say anything, a pale tall man stood there. only eva and i were looking towards the door. i could not think who it was, until a low startled voice exclaimed "fritz!" and looking around at eva, i saw she had fainted. in another instant he was kneeling beside her, lavishing every tender name on her, while my mother stood on the other side, holding the unconscious form in her arms, and sobbing out fritz's name. our dear father stood up, asking bewildered questions--our grandmother awoke, and rubbing her eyes, surveyed the whole group with a puzzled expression, murmuring,-- "is it a dream? or are the zwickau prophets right after all, and is it the resurrection?" but no one seemed to remember that tears and endearing words and bewildered exclamations were not likely to restore any one from a fainting fit, until to my great satisfaction our good motherly elsè appeared at the door, saying, "what is it? lottchen ran over to tell me she thought there were thieves." then comprehending everything at a glance, she dipped a handkerchief in water, and bathed eva's brow, and fanned her with it, until in a few minutes she awoke with a short sobbing breath, and in a little while her eyes opened, and as they rested on fritz, a look of the most perfect rest came over her face, she placed her other hand on the one he held already, and closed her eyes again. i saw great tears falling under the closed eyelids. then looking up again and seeing my mother bending over her, she drew down her hand and laid it on fritz's, and we left those three alone together. when we were all safely in the next room, we all by one impulse began to weep. i sobbed,-- "he looks so dreadfully ill. i think they have all but murdered him." and elsè said,-- "she has exactly the same look on her face that came over it when she was recovering from the plague, and he stood motionless beside her, with that rigid hopeless tranquility on his face, just before he left to be a monk. what will happen next?" and my grandmother said in a feeble broken voice, "he looks just as your grandfather did when he took leave of me in prison. indeed, sometimes i am quite confused in mind. it seems as if things were coming over again. i can hardly make out whether it is a dream, or a ghost, or a resurrection." our father only did not join in our tears. he said what was very much wiser. "children, the greatest joy our house has known since fritz left has came to it to-day. let us give god thanks." and we all stood around him while he took the little velvet cap from his bald head and thanked god, while we all wept out our amen. after that we grew calmer; the overwhelming tumult of feeling, in which we could scarcely tell joy from sorrow, passed, and we began to understand it was indeed a great joy which had been given to us. then we heard a little stir in the house, and my mother summoned us back; but we found her alone with fritz, and would insist on his submitting to an unlimited amount of family caresses and welcomes. "come, fritz, and assure our grandmother that you are alive, and that you have never been dead," said elsè. and then her eyes filling with tears, she added, "what you must have suffered! if i had not remembered you before you received the tonsure, i should scarcely have known you now with your dark, long beard, and your white thin face." "yes," observed atlantis in the deliberate way in which she usually announces her discoveries, "no doubt that is the reason why eva recognized fritz before thekla did, although they were both facing the door, and must have seen him at the same time. she remembered him before he received the tonsure." we all smiled a little at atlantis' discovery, whereupon she looked up with a bewildered expression, and said, "do you think, then, she did _not_ recognize him? i did not think of that. probably, then, she took him for a thief, like lottchen!" fritz was deep in conversation with our mother, and was not heeding us, but elsè laughed softly as she patted atlantis' hand, and said,-- "conrad winkelried must have expressed himself very plainly, sister, before you understood him." "he did, sister elsè," replied atlantis gravely. "but what has that to do with eva?" when i went up to our room, eva's and mine, i found her kneeling by her bed. in a few minutes she rose, and clasping me in her arms, she said,-- "god is very good, thekla. i have believed that so long, but never half enough until to-night." i saw that she had been weeping, but the old calm had come back to her face, only with a little more sunshine on it. then, as if she feared to be forgetting others in her own happiness, she took my hand and said-- "dear thekla, god is leading us all through all the dark days to the morning. we must never distrust him any more!" and without saying another word we retired to rest. in the morning when i woke eva was sitting beside me with a lamp on the table, and the large latin bible open before her. i watched her face for some time. it looked so pure, and good, and happy, with that expression on it which always helped me to understand the meaning of the words, "child of god," "little children," as dr. melancthon says our lord called his disciples just before he left them. there was so much of the unclouded trustfulness of the "_child_" in it, and yet so much of the peace and depth which are of _god_. after i had been looking at her a while she closed the bible and began to alter a dress of mine which she had promised to prepare for christmas. as she was sewing, she hummed softly, as she was accustomed, some strains of old church music. at length i said-- "eva, how old were you when fritz became a monk?" "sixteen," she said softly; "he went away just after the plague." "then you have been separated twelve long years," i said. "god, then, sometimes exercises patience a long while." "it does not seem long now," she said; "we both believed we were separated by god, and separated for ever on earth." "poor eva," i said; "and this was the sorrow which helped to make you so good." "i did not know it had been so great a sorrow, thekla," she said with a quivering voice, "until last night." "then you had loved each other all that time," i said, half to myself. "i suppose so," she said in a low voice. "but i never knew till yesterday how much." after a short silence, she began again with a smile,-- "thekla, he thinks me unchanged during all those years; me, the matron of the novices! but oh, how he is changed! what a life-time of suffering on his face! how they must have made him suffer!" "god gives it to you as your life-work to restore and help him," i said. "o eva, it must be the best woman's lot in the world to bind up for the dearest on earth the wounds which men have inflicted. it must be joy unutterable to receive back from god's own hands a love you have both so dearly proved you were ready to sacrifice for him." "your mother thinks so too," she said. "she said last night the vows which would bind us together would be holier than any ever uttered by saint or hermit." "did our mother say that?" i asked. "yes," replied eva. "and she said she was sure dr. luther would think so also." xxvi. fritz's story. _december_ , . we are betrothed. solemnly in the presence of our family and friends eva has promised to be my wife; and in a few weeks we are to be married. our home (at all events, at first) is to be in the thuringian forest, in the parsonage belonging to ulrich von gersdorf's castle. the old priest is too aged to do anything. chriemhild has set her heart on having us to reform the peasantry, and they all believe the quiet and the pure air of the forest will restore my health, which has been rather shattered by all i have gone through during these last months, although not as much as they think. i feel strong enough for anything already. what i have lost during all those years in being separated from her! how poor and one-sided my life has been! how strong the rest her presence gives me, makes me to do whatever work god may give me! amazing blasphemy on god to assert that the order in which he has founded human life is disorder, that the love which the son of god compares to the relation between himself and his church sullies or lowers the heart. have these years then been lost? have i wandered away wilful and deluded from the lot of blessing god had appointed me, since that terrible time of the plague, at eisenach? have all these been wasted years? has all the suffering been fruitless, unnecessary pain? and, after all, do i return with precious time lost and strength diminished just to the point i might have reached so long ago! for eva i am certain this is not so; every step of her way, the loving hand has led her. did not the convent through her become a home or a way to the eternal home to many? but for me? no, for me also the years have brought more than they have taken away! those who are to help the perplexed and toiling men of their time, must first go down into the conflicts of their time. is it not this which makes even martin luther the teacher of our nation? is it not this which qualifies weak and sinful men to be preachers of the gospel instead of angels from heaven? the holy angels sang on their heavenly heights the glad tidings of great joy, but the shepherds, the fishermen, and the publican spoke it in the homes of men! the angel who liberated the apostles from prison said, as if spontaneously, from the fulness of his heart, "go speak to the people the words _of this life_." but the trembling lips of peter who had denied, and thomas who had doubted, and john who had misunderstood, were to speak the life-giving words to men, denying, doubting, misconceiving men, to tell what they knew, and how the saviour could forgive. the voice that had been arrested in cowardly curses by the look of divine pardoning love, had a tone in it the archangel michael's could never have! and when the pharisees, hardest of all, were to be reached, god took a pharisee of the pharisees, a blasphemer, a persecutor, one who could say, "i might also have confidence in the flesh," "i persecuted the church of god." was david's secret contest in vain, when slaying the lion and the bear, to defend those few sheep in the wilderness, he proved the weapons with which he slew goliath and rescued the host of israel? were martin luther's years in the convent of erfurt lost? or have they not been the school-days of his life, the armoury where his weapons were forged, the gymnasium in which his eye and hand were trained for the battle-field? he has seen the monasteries from within; he has felt the monastic life from within. he can say of all these internal rules, "i have proved them, and found them powerless to sanctify the heart." it is this which gives the irresistible power to his speaking and writing. it is this which by god's grace enables him to translate the epistles of paul the pharisee and the apostle as he has done. the truths had been translated by the holy spirit into the language of his experience, and graven on his heart long before; so that in rendering the greek into german he also testified of things he had seen, and the bible from his pen reads as if it had been originally written in german, for the german people. to me also in my measure these years have not been time lost. there are many truths that one only learns in their fulness by proving the bitter bondage of the errors they contradict. perhaps also we shall help each other and others around us better for having been thus trained apart. i used to dream of the joy of leading her into life. but now god gives her back to me enriched with all those years of separate experience, not as the eva of childhood, when i saw her last, but ripened to perfect womanhood; not merely to reflect my thoughts, but to blend the fulness of her life with mine. xxvii. eva's story. wittemberg, _january_, . how little idea i had how the thought of fritz was interwoven with all my life! he says he knew only too well how the thoughts of me was bound up with every hope and affection of his! but he contended against it long. he said that conflict was far more agonizing than all he suffered in the prison since. for many years he thought it sin to think of me. i never thought it sin to think of him. i was sure it was not, whatever my confessor might say. because i had always thanked god more than for anything else in the world, for all he had been to me, and had taught me, and i felt so sure what i could thank god for could not be wrong. but now it is _duty_ to love him best. of that i am quite sure. and certainly it is not difficult. my only fear is that he will be disappointed in me when he learns just what i am, day by day, with all the halo of distance gone. and yet i am not really afraid. love weaves better glories than the mists of distance. and we do not expect miracles from each other, or that life is to be a paradise. only the unutterable comfort of being side by side in every conflict, trial, joy, and supporting each other! if i can say "only" of that! for i do believe our help will be mutual. far weaker and less wise as i am than he is, with a range of thought and experience so much narrower, and a force of purpose so much feebler, i feel i have a kind of strength which may in some way, at some times even help fritz. and it is this which makes me see the good of these separated years, in which otherwise i might have lost so much. with him the whole world seems so much larger and higher to me, and yet during these years, i do feel god has taught me something, and it is a happiness to have a little more to bring him than i could have had in my early girlhood. it was for my sake, then, he made that vow of leaving us for ever! and aunt cotta is so happy. on that evening when he returned, and we three were left alone, she said, after a few minutes' silence-- "children, let us all kneel down, and thank god that he has given me the desire of my heart." and afterwards she told us what she had always wished and planned for fritz and me, and how she had thought his abandoning of the world a judgment for her sins; but how she was persuaded now that the curse borne for us was something infinitely more than anything she could have endured, and that it had been all borne, and nailed to the bitter cross, and rent and blotted out for ever. and now, she said, she felt as if the last shred of evil were gone, and her life were beginning again in us--to be blessed and a blessing beyond her utmost dreams. fritz does not like to speak much of what he suffered in the prison of that dominican convent, and least of all to me; because, although i repeat to myself, "it is over--over for ever!"--whenever i think of his having been on the dreadful rack, it all seems present again. he was on the point of escaping the very night they came and led him in for examination in the torture-chamber. and after that, they carried him back to prison, and seemed to have left him to die there. for two days they sent him no food; but then the young monk who had first spoken to him, and induced him to come to the convent, managed to steal to him almost every day with food and water, and loving words of sympathy, until his strength revived a little, and they escaped together through the opening he had dug in the wall before the examination. but their escape was soon discovered, and they had to hide in the caves and recesses of the forest for many weeks before they could strike across the country and find their way to wittemberg at last. but it is over now. and yet not over. he who suffered will never forget the suffering faithfully borne for him. and the prison at the dominican convent will be a fountain of strength for his preaching among the peasants in the thuringian forest. he will be able to say, "god can sustain in all trials. he will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able to bear. _i know it, for i have proved it._" and i think that will help him better to translate the bible to the hearts of the poor, than even the greek and hebrew he learned at rome and tübingen. xxviii. elsè's story. all our little world is in such a tumult of thankfulness and joy at present, that i think i am the only sober person left in it. the dear mother hovers around her two lost ones with quiet murmurs of content, like a dove around her nest, and is as absorbed as if she were marrying her first daughter, or were a bride herself, instead of being the established and honoured grandmother that she is. chriemhild and i might find it difficult not to be envious, if we had not our own private consolations at home. eva and fritz are certainly far more reasonable, and instead of regarding the whole world as centering in them, like our dear mother, appear to consider themselves made to serve the whole world, which is more christian-like, but must also have its limits. i cannot but feel it a great blessing for them that they have chriemhild and ulrich, and more especially gottfried and me, to look after their temporal affairs. for instance, house linen. eva, of course, has not a piece; and as to her bridal attire, i believe she would be content to be married in a nun's robe, or in the peasant's dress she escaped from nimptschen in. however, i have stores which, as gretchen is not likely to require them just yet, will, no doubt, answer the purpose. gretchen is not more than eight, but i always think it well to be beforehand; and my maidens had already a stock of linen enough to stock several chests for her, which, under the circumstances, seems quite a special providence. gottfried insists upon choosing her wedding dress. and my mother believes her own ancestral jewelled head-dress with the pearls (which once in our poverty we nearly sold to a merchant at eisenach) has been especially preserved for eva. it is well that atlantis, who is to be married on the same day, is the meekest and most unselfish of brides, and that her marriage outfit is already all but arranged. chriemhild and ulrich have persuaded the old knight to rebuild the parsonage; and she writes what a delight it is to watch it rising among the cottages in the village, and think of the fountain of blessing that house will be to all. our grandmother insists on working with her dear, feeble hands, on eva's wedding stores, and has ransacked her scanty remnants of former splendour, and brought out many a quaint old jewel from the ancient schönberg treasures. christopher is secretly preparing them a library of all dr. luther's and dr. melancthon's books, beautifully bound, and i do not know how many learned works besides. and the melancholy has all passed from fritz's face, or only remains as the depth of a river to bring out the sparkle of its ripples. the strain seems gone from eva's heart and his. they both seem for the first time all they were meant to be. just now, however, another event is almost equally filling our grandmother's heart. a few days since, christopher brought in two foreigners to introduce to us. when she saw them, her work dropped from her hands, and half rising to meet them, she said some words in a language strange to all of us. the countenances of the strangers brightened as she spoke, and they replied in the same language. after a few minutes' conversation, our grandmother turned to us, and said,-- "they are bohemians,--they are hussites. they know my husband's name. the truth he died for is still living in my country." the rush of old associations was too much for her. her lips quivered, the tears fell slowly over her cheeks, and she could not say another word. the strangers consented to remain under my father's roof for the night, and told us the errand which brought them to wittemberg. from generation to generation, since john huss was martyred, they said, the truth he taught had been preserved in bohemia, always at the risk, and often at the cost of life. sometimes it had perplexed them much that nowhere in the world beside could they hear of those who believed the same truth. could it be possible that the truth of god was banished to the mountain fastnesses? like elijah of old, they felt disposed to cry in their wilderness, "i, only i, am left." "but they could not have been right to think thus," said my mother, who never liked the old religion to be too much reproached. "god has always had his own who have loved him, in the darkest days. from how many convent cells have pious hearts looked up to him. it requires great teaching of the holy spirit and many battles to make a luther; but, i think, it requires only to touch the hem of christ's garment to make a christian. "yes," said gottfried, opening our beloved commentary on the galatians, "what dr. luther said is true indeed, 'some there were in the olden time whom god called by the text of the gospel and by baptism. these walked in simplicity and humbleness of heart, thinking the monks and friars, and such only as were annointed by the bishops, to be religious and holy, and themselves to be profane and secular, and not worthy to be compared to them. wherefore, they, feeling in themselves no good works to set against the wrath and judgment of god, did fly to the death and passion of christ, and were saved in this simplicity.'" "no doubt it was so," said the bohemian deputies. "but all this was hidden from the eye of man. twice our fathers sent secret messengers through the length and breadth of christendom to see if they could find any that did understand, that did seek after god, and everywhere they found carelessness, superstition, darkness, but no response." "ah," said my mother, "that is a search only the eye of god can make. yet, doubtless, the days were dark." "they came back without having met with any response," continued the strangers, "and again our fathers had to toil and suffer on alone. and now the sounds of life have reached us in our mountain solitudes from all parts of the world; and we have come to wittemberg to hear the voice which awoke them first, and to claim brotherhood with the evangelical christians here. dr. luther has welcomed us, and we return to our mountains to tell our people that the morning has dawned on the world at last." the evening passed in happy intercourse, and before we separated, christopher brought his lute, and we all sang together the hymn of john huss, which dr. luther has published among his own:-- "jesus christus nostra salus," and afterwards luther's own glorious hymn in german, "_nun freut euch lieben christen gemein_:" dear christian people, all rejoice; each soul with joy upspringing: pour forth one song with heart and voice, with love and gladness singing. give thanks to god, our lord above-- thanks for his miracles of love: dearly he hath redeemed us! the devil's captive bound i lay, lay in death's chains forlorn; my sins distressed me night and day-- the sin within me born; i could not do the thing i would, in all my life was nothing good, sin had possessed me wholly. my good works could no comfort shed, worthless must they be rated; my free will to all good was dead, and god's just judgments hated. me of all hope my sins bereft: nothing but death to me was left, and death was hell's dark portal. then god saw with deep pity moved my grief that knew no measure; pitying he saw, and freely loved,-- to save me was his pleasure. the father's heart to me was stirred, he saved me with no sovereign word, his very best it cost him. he spoke to his beloved son with infinite compassion, "go hence, my heart's most precious crown. be to the lost salvation; death, his relentless tyrant slay, and bear him from his sins away, with thee to live forever." willing the son took that behest, born of a maiden mother, to his own earth he came a guest, and made himself my brother. all secretly he went his way, veiled in my mortal flesh he lay, and thus the foe he vanquished. he said to me, "cling close to me, thy sorrows now are ending! freely i gave myself for thee, thy life with mine defending; for i am thine, and thou art mine, and where i am there thou shalt shine, the foe shall never reach us. true, he will shed my heart's life blood, and torture me to death: all this i suffer for thy good, this hold with earnest faith. death dieth through my life divine; i sinless bear those sins of thine, and so shalt thou be rescued. i rise again to heaven from hence, high to my father soaring, thy master there to be, and thence, my spirit on thee pouring; in every grief to comfort thee, and teach thee more and more of me, into all truth still guiding. what i have done and taught on earth, do thou, and teach, none dreading; that so god's kingdom may go forth, and his high praise be spreading; and guard thee from the words of men, lest the great joy be lost again; thus my last charge i leave thee." afterwards, at our mother's especial desire, eva and fritz sang a latin resurrection hymn from the olden time.[ ] [footnote : mundi renovatio nova parit gaudia, resurgente domino conresurgunt omnia; elementa serviunt, et auctoris sentiunt, quanta sint solemnia. &c. &c. &c. (the translation only is given above.)] the renewal of the world countless new joys bringeth forth: christ arising, all things rise-- rise with him from earth. all the creatures feel their lord-- feel his festal light outpoured. fire springs up with motion free, breezes wake up soft and warm; water flows abundantly, earth remaineth firm. all things light now skyward soar, solid things are rooted more; all things are made new. ocean waves, grown tranquil, lie smiling 'neath the heavens serene; all the air breathes light and fresh; our valley groweth green. verdure clothes the arid plain, frozen waters gush again at the touch of spring. for the frost of death is melted the prince of this world lieth low; and his empire strong among us, all is broken now. grasping him in whom alone he could nothing claim or own, his domain he lost. paradise is now regained, life has vanquished death; and the joys he long had lost, man recovereth. the cherubim at god's own word turn aside the flaming sword; the long-lost blessing is restored. the closed way opened free.[ ] [footnote : adam of st. victor, twelfth century.] the next morning the strangers left us; but all the day our grandmother sat silent and tranquil, with her hands clasped, in an inactivity very unusual with her. in the evening, when we had assembled again--as we all do now every day in the old house--she said quietly, "children, sing to me the 'nunc dimittis.' god has fulfilled every desire of my heart; and, if he willed it, i should like now to depart in peace to my dead. for i know they live unto him." afterwards, we fell into conversation about the past. it was the eve of the wedding-day of eva and fritz, and atlantis and conrad. and we, a family united in one faith, naturally spoke together of the various ways in which god had led us to the one end. the old days rose up before me, when the ideal of holiness had towered above my life, grim and stony, like the fortress of the wartburg (in which my patroness had lived), above the streets of eisenach, and when even christ the lord seemed to me, as dr. luther says, "a law-maker giving more strait and heavy commands than moses himself"--an irrevocable, unapproachable judge, enthroned far up in the cold spaces of the sky; and heaven, like a convent, with very high walls, peopled by nuns rigid as aunt agnes. and then the change which came over all my heart when i learned, through dr. luther's teaching, that god is love--is our father; that christ is the saviour, who gave himself for our sins, and loved us better than life; that heaven is our father's house; that holiness is simply loving god--who is so good, and who has so loved us, and, loving one another, that the service we have to render is simply to give thanks and to do good;--when, as dr. luther said, that word "our" was written deeply in my heart--that for _our_ sins he died--for mine,--that for all, for us, for _me_, he gave himself. and then fritz told us how he had toiled and tormented himself to reconcile god to him, until he found, through dr. luther's teaching, that our sins have been borne away by the lamb of god--the sacrifice not of man's gift, but of god's; "that in that one person, jesus christ, we had forgiveness of sins and eternal life;" that god is to us as the father to the prodigal son--entreating _us_ to be reconciled to him. and he told us also, how he had longed for a priest, who could know infallibly all his heart, and secure him from the deceitfulness and imperfectness of his own confessions, and assure him that, knowing all his sin to its depths, with all its aggravations, he yet pronounced him absolved. and at last he had found that priest, penetrating to the depths of his heart, tracing every act to its motive, every motive to its source, and yet pronouncing him absolved, freely, fully, at once--imposing no penance, but simply desiring a life of thanksgiving in return. "and this priest," he added, "is with me always; i make my confession to him every evening, or oftener, if i need it; and as often as i confess, he absolves, and bids me be of good courage--go in peace, and sin no more. but he is not on earth. he dwells in the holy of holies, which never more is empty, like the solitary sanctuary of the old temple on all days in the year but one. he ever liveth to make intercession for us!" then we spoke together of the two great facts dr. luther had unveiled to us from the holy scriptures, that there is one sacrifice of atonement, the spotless lamb of god, who gave himself once for our sins; and that there is but one priestly mediator, the son of man and son of god; that, in consequence of this, all christians are a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices; and the feeblest has his offering, which, through jesus christ, god delights to accept, having first accepted the sinner himself in the beloved. our mother spoke to us, in a few words, of the dreadful thoughts she had of god--picturing him rather as the lightning than the light; of the curse which she feared was lowering like a thunder-cloud over her life, until dr. luther began to show her that the curse has been borne for us by him who was made a curse for us, and removed for ever from all who trust in him. "and then," she said, "the holy supper taught me the rest. he bore for us the cross; he spreads for us the feast. we have, indeed, the cross to bear, but never more the curse; the cross from man, temptation from the devil, but from god nothing but blessing." but eva said she could not remember the time when she did not think god good and kind beyond all. there were many other things in religion which perplexed her; but this had always seemed clear, that god so loved the world, he gave his son. and she had always hoped that all the rest would be clear one day in the light of that love. the joy which dr. luther's writings had brought her was, she thought, like seeing the stains cleared away from some beautiful painting, whose beauty she had known but not fully seen--or like having a misunderstanding explained about a dear friend. she had always wondered about the hard penances to appease one who loved so much, and the many mediators to approach him; and it had been an inexpressible delight to find that these were all a mistake, and that access to god was indeed open--that the love and the sin,--life and death,--had met on the cross, and the sin had been blotted out, and death swallowed up of life. in such discourse we passed the eve of the wedding day. and now the day has vanished like a bright vision; our little gentle loving atlantis has gone with her husband to their distant home, the bridal crowns are laid aside, and eva and fritz in their sober every-day dress, but with the crown of unfading joy in their hearts, have gone together to their lowly work in the forest, to make one more of those hallowed pastor's homes which are springing up now in the villages of our land. but gretchen's linen-chest is likely to be long before it can be stored again. we have just received tidings of the escape of eva's friends, the nine nuns of nimptschen, from the convent, at last! they wrote to dr. luther, who interested himself much in seeking asylums for them. and now master leonard koppe of torgan has brought them safely to wittemberg concealed in his beer waggon. they say one of the nuns in their haste left her slipper behind. they are all to be received into various homes, and gottfried and i are to have the care of catherine von bora, the most determined and courageous, it is said, of all, from whose cell they effected their escape. i have been busy preparing the guest-chamber for her, strewing lavender on the linen, and trying to make it home-like for the young maiden who is banished for christ's sake from her old home. i think it must bring blessings to any home to have such guests. _june_, . our guest, the noble maiden catherine von bora, has arrived. grave and reserved she seems to be, although eva spoke of her as very cheerful, and light as well as firm of heart. i feel a little afraid of her. her carriage has a kind of majesty about it which makes me offer her more deference than sympathy. her eyes are dark and flashing, and her forehead is high and calm. this is not so remarkable in me, i having been always easily appalled by dignified persons; but even dr. luther, it seems to me, is somewhat awed by this young maiden. he thinks her rather haughty and reserved. i am not sure whether it is pride or a certain maidenly dignity. i am afraid i have too much of the homely burgher cotta nature to be quite at ease with her. our grandmother would doubtless have understood her better than either our gentle mother or i, but the dear feeble form seems to have been gradually failing since that meeting with the emissaries of the bohemian church. since the wedding she has not once left her bed. she seems to live more than ever in the past, and calls people by the names she knew them in her early days, speaking of our grandfather as "franz," and calling our mother "greta" instead of "the mother." in the past she seems to live, and in that glorious present, veiled from her view by so thin a veil. towards heaven the heart, whose earthly vision is closing, is as open as ever. i sit beside her and read the bible and dr. luther's books, and gretchen says to her some of the new german hymns, dr. luther's, and his translation of john huss's hymns. to-day she made me read again and again this passage,--"christian faith is not, as some say, an empty husk in the heart until love shall quicken it; but if it be true faith, it is a sure trust and confidence in the heart whereby christ is apprehended, so that christ is the object of faith; _yea, rather even, in faith christ himself is present_. faith therefore justifieth because it apprehendeth and possesseth this treasure, christ present. wherefore christ apprehended by faith, and dwelling in the heart, is the true christian righteousness." it is strange to sit in the old house, now so quiet, with our dear blind father downstairs, and only thekla at home of all the sisters, and the light in that brave, strong heart of our grandmother growing slowly dim; or to hear the ringing sweet childish voice of gretchen repeating the hymns of this glorious new time to the failing heart of the olden time. last night, while i watched beside that sick bed, i thought much of dr. luther alone in the augustinian monastery, patiently abiding in the dwelling his teaching has emptied, sending forth thence workers and teachers throughout the world; and as i pondered what he has been to us, to fritz and eva in their lowly hallowed home, to our mother, to our grandmother, to the bohemian people, to little gretchen singing her hymns to me, to the nine rescued nuns, to aunt agnes in the convent, and christopher at his busy printing-press, to young and old, religious and secular; i wonder what the new time will bring to that brave, tender, warm heart which has set so many hearts which were in bondage free, and made life rich to so many who were poor, yet has left his own life so solitary still. xxix. eva's story. thuringian forest, _july_, . it is certainly very much happier for fritz and me to live in the pastor's house than in the castle; down among the homes of men, and the beautiful mysteries of this wonderful forest land, instead of towering high above all on a fortified height. not of course that i mean the heart may not be as lowly in the castle as in the cottage; but it seems to me a richer and more fruitful life to dwell among the people than to be raised above them. the character of the dwelling seems to symbolize the nature of the life. and what lot can be so blessed as ours? linked to all classes that we may serve our master who came to minister among all. in education equal to the nobles, or rather to the patrician families of the great cities, who so far surpass the country proprietors in culture,--in circumstances the pastor is nearer the peasant, knowing by experience what are the homely trials of straitened means. little offices of kindness can be interchanged between us. muhme trüdchen finds a pure pleasure in bringing me a basket of her new-laid eggs as an acknowledgment of fritz's visits to her sick boy; and it makes it all the sweeter to carry food to the family of the old charcoal-burner in the forest-clearing that our meals for a day or two have to be a little plainer in consequence. i think gifts which come from loving contrivance and a little self-denial, must be more wholesome to receive than the mere overflowings of a full store. and i am sure they are far sweeter to give. our lowly home seems in some sense the father's house of the village; and it is such homes, such hallowed centres of love and ministry, which god through our luther is giving back to village after village in our land. but, as fritz says, i must be careful not to build our parsonage into a pinnacle higher than any castle, just to make a pedestal for him, which i certainly sometimes detect myself doing. his gifts seem to me so rich, and his character is, i am sure, so noble, that it is natural i should picture to myself his vocation as the highest in the world. that it is the highest, however, i am secretly convinced; the highest as long as it is the lowliest. the people begin to be quite at home with us now. there are no great gates, no moat, no heavy draw-bridge between us and the peasants. our doors stand open; and timid hands which could never knock to demand admittance at castle or convent gate can venture gently to lift our latch. mothers creep to the kitchen with their sick children to ask for herbs, lotions, or drinks, which i learned to distil in the convent. and then i can ask them to sit down, and we often naturally begin to speak of him who healed the sick people with a word, and took the little children from the mothers' arms to his to bless them. sometimes, too, stories of wrong and sorrow come out to me which no earthly balm can cure, and i can point to him who only can heal because he only can forgive. then fritz says he can preach so differently from knowing the heart-cares and burdens of his flock; and the people seem to so feel differently when they meet again from the pulpit with sacred words and histories which they have grown familiar with in the home. a few of the girls come to me also to learn sewing or knitting, and to listen or learn to read bible stories. fritz meanwhile instructs the boys in the scriptures and in sacred music, because the schoolmaster is growing old and can teach the children little but a few latin prayers by rote, and to spell out the german alphabet. i could not have imagined such ignorance as we have found here. it seems, fritz says, as if the first preachers of christianity to the germans had done very much for the heart of the nation what the first settlers did for its forests, made a clearing here and there, built a church, and left the rest to its original state. the bears and wolves which prowl about the forest, and sometimes in winter venture close to the thresholds of our houses, are no wilder than the wild legends which haunt the hearts of the peasants. on sundays they attire themselves in their holiday clothes, come to hear mass, bow before the sacred host, and the crucifix, and image of the virgin, and return to continue during the week their every-day terror-worship of the spirits of the forest. they seem practically to think our lord is the god of the church and the village, while the old pagan sprites retain possession of the forest. they appear scarcely even quite to have decided st. christopher's question, "which is the _strongest_, that i may worship him?" but, alas, whether at church or in the forest, the worship they have been taught seems to have been chiefly one of fear. the cobolds and various sprites they believe will bewitch their cows, set fire to their hay-stacks, lead them astray through the forest, steal their infants from the cradle to replace them by fairy changelings. their malignity and wrath they deprecate, therefore, by leaving them gleanings of corn or nuts, by speaking of them with feigned respect, or by christian words and prayer, which they use as spells. from the almighty god they fear severer evil. he, they think, is to sit on the dreadful day of wrath on the judgment throne to demand strict account of all their misdeeds. against his wrath also they have been taught to use various remedies which seem to us little better than a kind of spiritual spells; paters, aves, penances, confessions, indulgences. to protect them against the forest sprites they have secret recourse to certain gifted persons, mostly shrivelled, solitary, weird old women (successors, fritz says, of the old pagan prophetesses), who for money perform certain rites of white magic for them; or give them written charms to wear, or teach them magic rhymes to say. to protect them against god, they used to have recourse to the priest, who performed masses for them, laid ghosts, absolved sins, promised to turn aside the vengeance of offended heaven. but in both cases they seem to have the melancholy persuasion that the ruling power is hostile to them. in both cases, religion is not so much a _worship_ as a _spell_; not an approach to god, but an interposing of something to keep off the weight of his dreaded presence. when first we began to understand this, it used to cost me many tears. "how can it be," i said one day to fritz, "that all the world seems so utterly to misunderstand god?" "there is an enemy in the world," he said, solemnly, "sowing lies about god in every heart." "yet god is mightier than satan," i said; "how is it then that no ray penetrates through the darkness from fruitful seasons, from the beauty of the spring-time, from the abundance of the harvest, from the joys of home, to show the people that god is love?" "ah, eva," he said sadly, "have you forgotten that not only is the devil in the world, but sin in the heart? he lies, indeed, about god, when he persuades us that god grudges us blessings; but he tells the truth about ourselves when he reminds us that we are sinners, under the curse of the good and loving law. the lie would not stand for an instant if it were not founded on the truth. it is only by confessing the truth, on which his falsehood is based, that we can destroy it. we must say to the peasants, 'your fear is well founded. see _on that cross_ what your sin cost!'" "but the old religion displayed the crucifix," i said. "thank god, it did--it does!" he said. "but instead of the crucifix, we have to tell of a cross from which the crucified is gone; of an empty tomb and a risen saviour; of the curse removed; of god, who gave the sacrifice, welcoming back the sufferer to the throne." we have not made much change in the outward ceremonies. only, instead of the sacrifice of the mass, we have the feast of the holy supper; no elevation of the host, no saying of private masses for the dead; and all the prayers, thanksgivings, and hymns, in german. dr. luther still retains the latin in some of the services of wittemberg, on account of its being an university town, that the youth may be trained in the ancient languages. he said he would gladly have some of the services in greek and hebrew, in order thereby to make the study of those languages as common as that of latin. but here in the forest, among the ignorant peasants, and the knights, who, for the most part, forget before old age what little learning they acquired in boyhood, fritz sees no reason whatever for retaining the ancient language; and delightful it is to watch the faces of the people when he reads the bible or luther's hymns, now that some of them begin to understand that the divine service is something in which their hearts and minds are to join, instead of a kind of magic external rite to be performed for them. it is a great delight also to us to visit chriemhild and ulrich von gersdorf at the castle. the old knight and dame hermentrud were very reserved with us at first; but the knight has always been most courteous to me, and dame hermentrud, now that she is convinced that we have no intention of trenching on her state, receives us very kindly. between us, moreover, there is another tender bond since she has allowed herself to speak of her sister beatrice, to me known only as the subdued and faded aged nun; to dame hermentrud, and the aged retainers and villagers, remembered in her bright, but early blighted, girlhood. again and again i have to tell her sister the story of her gradual awakening from uncomplaining hopelessness to a lowly and heavenly rest in christ; and of her meek and peaceful death. "great sacrifices," she said once, "have to be made to the honour of a noble lineage, frau pastorin. i also have had my sorrows;" and she opened a drawer of a cabinet, and showed me the miniature portraits of a nobleman and his young boy, her husband and son, both in armour. "these both were slain in a feud with the family to which beatrice's betrothed belonged," she said bitterly. "and should our lines ever be mingled in one?" "but are these feuds never to die out?" i said. "yes," she replied sternly, leading me to a window, from which we looked on a ruined castle in the distance. "_that_ feud has died out. the family is extinct!" "the lord christ tells us to forgive our enemies," i said quietly. "undoubtedly," she replied; "but the von bernsteins were usurpers of our rights, robbers and murderers. such wrongs must be avenged, or society would fall to pieces." towards the peasants dame hermentrud has very condescending and kindly feelings, and frequently gives us food and clothing for them, although she still doubts the wisdom of teaching them to read. "every one should be kept in his place," she says. and as yet i do not think she can form any idea of heaven, except as of a well organized community, in which the spirits of the nobles preside loftily on the heights, while the spirits of the peasants keep meekly to the valleys; the primary distinction between earth and heaven being, that in heaven all will know how to keep in their places. and no doubt in one sense she is right. but how would she like the order in which places in heaven are assigned? "_the first shall be last, and the last first._" "_he that is chief among you, let him be as he that doth serve._" among the peasants sometimes, on the other hand, fritz is startled by the bitterness of feeling which betrays itself against the lords; how the wrongs of generations are treasured up, and the name of luther is chiefly revered from a vague idea that he, the peasant's son, will set the peasants free. ah, when will god's order be established in the world, when each, instead of struggling upwards in selfish ambition, and pressing others down in mean pride--looking up to envy, and looking down to scorn--shall look up to honour and look down to help! when all shall "by love serve one another?" _september_, . we have now a guest of whom i do not dare to speak to dame hermentrud. indeed, the whole history fritz and i will never tell to any here. a few days since a worn, grey-haired old man came to our house, whom fritz welcomed as an old friend. it was priest ruprecht haller, from franconia. fritz had told me something of his history, so that i knew what he meant, when in a quivering voice he said, abruptly, taking fritz aside,-- "bertha is very ill--perhaps dying. i must never see her any more. she will not suffer it, i know. can you go and speak a few words of comfort to her?" fritz expressed his readiness to do anything in his power, and it was agreed that priest ruprecht was to stay with us that night, and that they were to start together on the morrow for the farm where bertha was at service, which lay not many miles off through the forest. but in the night i had a plan, which i determined to set going before i mentioned it to fritz, because he will often consent to a thing which is once _begun_, which he would think quite impracticable if it is only _proposed_; that is, especially as regards anything in which i am involved. accordingly, the next morning i rose very early and went to our neighbour, farmer herder, to ask him to lend us his old grey pony for the day, to bring home an invalid. he consented, and before we had finished breakfast the pony was at the door. "what is this?" said fritz. "it is farmer herder's pony to take me to the farm where bertha lives, and to bring her back," i said. "impossible, my love!" said fritz. "but you see it is already all arranged, and begun to be done," i said; "i am dressed, and the room is all ready to receive her." priest ruprecht rose from the table, and moved towards me, exclaiming fervently,-- "god bless you!" then seeming to fear that he had said what he had no right to say, he added, "god bless you for the thought. but it is too much!" and he left the room. "what would you do, eva?" fritz said, looking in much perplexity at me. "welcome bertha as a sister," i said, "and nurse her until she is well." "but how can i suffer you to be under one roof?" he said. i could not help my eyes filling with tears. "the lord jesus suffered such to anoint his feet," i said, "and she, you told me, loves him, has given up all dearest to her to keep his words. let us blot out the past as he does, and let her begin life again from our home, if god wills it so." fritz made no further objection. and through the dewy forest paths we went, we three; and with us, i think we all felt, went another, invisible, the good shepherd of the wandering sheep. never did the green glades and forest flowers and solemn pines seem to me more fresh and beautiful, and more like a holy cathedral than that morning. after a little meek resistance bertha came back with fritz and me. her sickness seemed to me to be more the decline of one for whom life's hopes and work are over, than any positive disease. and with care, the grey pony brought her safely home. never did our dear home seem to welcome us so brightly as when we led her back to it, for whom it was to be a sanctuary of rest, and refuge from bitter tongues. there was a little room over the porch which we had set apart as the guest-chamber; and very sweet it was to me that bertha should be its first inmate; very sweet to fritz and me that our home should be what our lord's heart is, a refuge for the outcast, the penitent, the solitary, and the sorrowful. such a look of rest came over her poor, worn face, when at last she was laid on her little bed! "i think i shall get well soon," she said the next morning, "and then you will let me stay and be your servant; when i am strong i can work really hard and there is something in you both which makes me feel this like home." "we will try," i said, "to find out what god would have us do." she does improve daily. yesterday she asked for some spinning, or other work to do, and it seems to cheer her wonderfully. to-day she has been sitting in our dwelling-room with her spinning-wheel. i introduced her to the villagers who come in as a friend who has been ill. they do not know her history. _january_, . it is all accomplished now. the little guest-chamber over the porch is empty again, and bertha is gone. as she was recovering fritz received a letter from priest ruprecht, which he read in silence, and then laid aside until we were alone on one of our expeditions to the old charcoal-burner's in the forest. "haller wants to see bertha once more," he said, dubiously. "and why not fritz?" i said; "why should not the old wrong as far as possible be repaired, and those who have given each other up at god's commandment, be given back to each other by his commandment?" "i have thought so often, my love," he said, "but i did not know what you would think." so after some little difficulty and delay, bertha and priest ruprecht haller were married very quietly in our village church, and went forth to a distant village in pomerania, by the baltic sea, from which dr. luther had received a request to send them a minister of the gospel. it went to my heart to see the two go forth together down the village street, those two whose youth inhuman laws and human weakness had so blighted. there was a reverence about his tenderness to her, and a wistful lowliness in hers for him, which said, "all that thou hast lost for me, as far as may be i will make up to thee in the years that remain!" but as we watched her pale face and feeble steps, and his bent, though still vigorous form, fritz took my hands as we turned back into the house, and said,-- "it is well. but it can hardly be for long!" and i could not answer him for tears. xxx. elsè's story. wittemberg, _august_, . the slow lingering months of decline are over. yesterday our grandmother died. as i looked for the last time on the face that had smiled on me from childhood, the hands which rendered so many little loving services to me, none of which can evermore be returned to her, what a sacred tenderness is thrown over all recollection of her, how each little act of thoughtful consideration and self-denial rushes back on the heart, what love i can see glowing through the anxious care which sometimes made her a little querulous, especially with my father, although never lately. can life ever be quite the same again? can we ever forget to bear tenderly with little infirmities such as those of hers which seem so blameless now, or to prize with a thankfulness which would flood with sunshine our little cares, the love which must one day be silent to us as she is now? her death seems to age us all into another generation! she lived from the middle of the old world into the full morning of the new; and a whole age of the past seems to die with her. but after seeing those bohemian deputies and knowing that fritz and eva were married, she ceased to wish to live. she had lived, she said, through two mornings of time on earth, and now she longed for the daybreak of heaven. but yesterday morning, one of us! and now one of the heavenly host! yesterday we knew every thought of her heart, every detail of her life, and now she is removed into a sphere of which we know less than of the daily life of the most ancient of the patriarchs. as dr. luther says, an infant on its mother's breast has as much understanding of the life before it, as we of the life before us after death. "yet," he saith also, "since god hath made his world of earth and sky so fair, how much fairer that imperishable world beyond!" all seems to me clear and bright after the resurrection; but _now_? where is that spirit now, so familiar to us and so dear, and now so utterly separated? dr. luther said, "a christian should say, i know that it is thus i shall journey hence; when my soul goes forth, charge is given to god's kings and high princes, who are the dear angels, to receive me and convoy me safely home. the holy scriptures, he writes, teach nothing of purgatory, but tell us that the spirits of the just enjoy the sweetest and most delightful peace and rest. how they live there, indeed, we know not, or what the place is where they dwell. but this we know assuredly, they are in no grief or pain, but rest in the grace of god. as in this life they were wont to fall softly asleep in the guard and keeping of god and the dear angels, without fear of harm, although the devils might prowl around them; so after this life do they repose in the hand of god." "_to depart and be with christ is far better._" "_to-day in paradise with me._" "_absent from the body, at home with the lord._" everything for our peace and comfort concerning those who are gone depends on what those words "_with me_" were to them and are to us. where and how they live, indeed, we know not; with whom we know. the more then, o our saviour and theirs! we know of thee, the more we know of them. with thee, indeed, the waiting-time before the resurrection can be no cold drear ante-chamber of the palace. where thou art, must be light, love, and home. precious as dr. luther's own words are, what are they at a time like this, compared with the word of god he has unveiled to us? my mother, however, is greatly cheered by these words of his, "our lord and saviour grant us joyfully to see each other again hereafter. for our faith is sure, and we doubt not that we shall see each other again with christ in a little while; since the departure from this life to be with christ is less in god's sight, than if i go from you to mansfeld, or you took leave of me to go from wittemberg to mansfeld. this is assuredly true. a brief hour of sleep and all will be changed." wittemberg, _september_, . during this month we have been able often to give thanks that the beloved feeble form is at rest. the times seem very troublous. dr. luther thinks most seriously of them. rumours have reached us for some time of an uneasy feeling among the peasantry. fritz wrote about it from the thuringian forest. the peasants, as our good elector said lately, have suffered many wrongs from their lords; and fritz says they had formed the wildest hopes of better days from dr. luther and his words. they thought the days of freedom had come. and bitter and hard it is for them to learn that the gospel brings freedom now as of old by giving strength to suffer, instead of by suddenly redressing wrong. the fanatics, moreover, have been among them. the zwickau prophets and thomas münzer (silenced last year at wittemberg by luther's return from the wartburg), have promised them all they actually expected from luther. once more, they say, god is sending inspired men on earth, to introduce a new order of things, no more to teach the saints how to bow, suffer, and be patient; but how to fight and avenge themselves of their adversaries, and to reign. _october_, . now, alas, the peasants are in open revolt, rushing through the land by tens of thousands. the insurrection began in the black forest, and now it sweeps throughout the land, gathering strength as it advances, and bearing everything before it by the mere force of numbers and movements. city after city yields and admits them, and swears to their twelve articles, which in themselves they say are not so bad, if only they were enforced by better means. castle after castle is assailed and falls. ulrich writes in burning indignation at the cruel deaths they have inflicted on noble men and women, and on their pillaging the convents. fritz, on the other hand, writes entreating us not to forget the long catalogue of legalized wrongs which had lead to this moment of fierce and lawless vengeance. dr. luther, although sympathizing with the peasants by birth, and by virtue of his own quick and generous indignation at injustice, whilst with a prophet's plainness he blames the nobles for their exactions and tyranny, yet sternly demands the suppression of the revolt with the sword. he says this is essential, if it were only to free the honest and well-meaning peasantry from the tyranny of the ambitious and turbulent men who compel them to join their banner on pain of death. with a heart that bleeds at every severity, he counsels the severest measures as the most merciful. more than once he and others of the wittemberg doctors have succeeded in quieting and dispersing riotous bands of the peasants assembled by tens of thousands, with a few calm and earnest words. but bitter, indeed, are these times to him. the peasants whom he pities, and because he pities condemns, call out that he has betrayed them, and threaten his life. the prelates and princes of the old religion declare all this disorder and pillage are only the natural consequences of his false doctrine. but between them both he goes steadfastly forward, speaking faithful words to all. more and more, however, as terrible rumours reach us of torture, and murder, and wild pillage, he seems to become convinced that mercy and vigour are on the same side. and now he, whose journey through germany not three years since was a triumphal procession, has to ride secretly from place to place on his errands of peace-making, in danger of being put to death by the people if he were discovered! my heart aches for these peasants. these are not the pharisees who were "_not blind_," but understood only too well what they rejected. they are the "multitudes," the common people, who as of old heard the voice of love and truth gladly; for whom dying he pleaded, "they know not what they do." _april_, . the tide has turned. the army of the empire, under truchsess, is out. phillip of hesse, after quieting his own dominions, is come to saxony to suppress the revolt here. our own gentle and merciful elector, who so reluctantly drew the sword, is, they say, dying. the world is full of change! meantime, in our little wittemberg world, changes are in prospect. it seems probable that dr. luther, after settling the other eight nuns, and endeavouring also to find a home for catherine von bora, will espouse her himself. a few months since he tried to persuade her to marry glatz, pastor of orlamund, but she refused. and now it seems certain that the solitary augustinian convent will become a home, and that she will make it so. gottfried and i cannot but rejoice. in this world of tumult and unrest, it seems so needful that that warm, earnest heart should have one place where it can rest, one heart that will understand and be true to him if all else should become estranged, as so many have. and this, we trust, catherine von bora will be to him. reserved, and with an innate dignity, which will befit the wife of him whom god has called in so many ways to be the leader of the hearts of men, she has a spirit which will prevent her sinking into the mere reflection of that resolute character, and a cheerfulness and womanly tact which will, we hope, sustain him through many a depressing hour, such as those who wear earth's crowns of any kind must know. _december_, . this year has, indeed, been a year of changes. the peasant revolt is crushed. at frankenhausen, the last great victory was gained. thomas münzer was slain, and his undisciplined hosts fled in hopeless confusion. the revolt is crushed, alas! gottfried says, as men too generally crush their enemies when once in their power, exceeding the crime in the punishment, and laying up a store of future revolt and vengeance for future generations. the good and wise elector friedrich died just before the victory. it is well, perhaps, that he did not live to see the terrible vengeance that has been inflicted, the roadsteads lined with gibbets, torture returned by torture, insult by cruel mocking. the poor deluded people, especially the peasantry, wept for the good elector, and said, "ah, god, have mercy on us! we have lost our father!" he used to speak kindly to their children in the fields, and was always ready to listen to a tale of wrong. he died humbly as a christian; he was buried royally as a prince. shortly before his death, his chaplain, spalatin, came to see him. the elector gave him his hand, and said, "you do well to come to me. we are commanded to visit the sick." neither brother nor any near relative was with him when he died. the services of all brave men were needed in those stormy days. but he was not forsaken. to the childless, solitary sufferer, his faithful servants were like a family. "oh, dear children," he said, "i suffer greatly!" then joachim sack, one of his household, a silesian, said,-- "most gracious master, if god will, you will soon be better." shortly after the dying prince said,-- "dear children, i am ill indeed." and sack answered,-- "gracious lord, the almighty god sends you all this with a father's love, and with the best will to you." then the prince repeated softly, in latin, the words of job, "the lord gave, and the lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the lord." and once more he said,-- "dear children, i am very ill." and the faithful joachim comforted him again,--"my gracious master, the almighty god, sends it all to your electoral highness from the greatest love." the prince clasped his hands, and said,-- "_for that i can trust my good god!_" and added, "help me, help me, o my god." and after receiving the holy communion in both kinds, he called his servants around him, and said,-- "dear children, i entreat you, that in whatever i have done you wrong, by word or deed, you will forgive me for god's sake, and pray others to do the same. for we princes do much wrong often to poor people that should not be." as he spoke thus, all that were in the room could not restrain their tears, and seeing that, he said,-- "dear children, weep not for me. it will not be long with me now. but think of me, and pray to god for me." spalatin had copied some verses of the bible for him, which he put on his spectacles to read for himself. he thought much of luther, whom, much as he had befriended him, he had never spoken to, and sent for him. but it was in vain. luther was on the hartz mountains, endeavouring to quell the peasants' revolt. that interview is deferred to the world where all earthly distinctions are forgotten, but where the least christian services are remembered. so, "a child of peace," as one said, he departed, and rests in peace, through the high and only merits of the only son of god, in whom, in his last testament, he confessed was "all his hope." it was a solemn day for wittemberg when they laid him in his grave in the electoral church, which he had once so richly provided with relics. his body lying beneath it is the most sacred relic it enshrines for us now. knights and burghers met the coffin at the city gate; eight noblemen carried it, and a long train of mourners passed through the silent streets. many chanted around the tomb the old latin hymns, "in media vitæ," and "si bona suscipimur," and also the german, "from deepest need i cry to thee," and-- "in fried und freud fahr ich dahin." "i journey hence in peace and joy." the money which would in former times have purchased masses for his soul, was given to the poor. and dr. luther preached a sermon on that promise, "those who sleep in jesus, god will bring with him," which makes it needless, indeed, to pray for the repose of those who thus sleep. gretchen asked me in the evening what the hymn meant,-- "i journey hence in peace and joy." i told her it was the soul of the prince that thus journeyed hence. "the procession was so dark and sad," she said, "the words did not seem to suit." "that procession was going to the grave," said thekla, who was with us. "there was another procession, which we could not see, going to heaven. the holy angels, clothed in radiant white, were carrying the happy spirit to heaven, and singing, as they went, anthems such as that, while we were weeping here." "i should like to see that procession of the dear angels, aunt thekla," said gretchen. "mother says the good elector had no little children to love him, and no one to call him any tenderer name than 'your electoral highness' when he died. but on the other side of the grave he will not be lonely, will he? the holy angels will have tender names for him there, will they not?" "the lord jesus will, at all events," i said. "he calleth his own sheep by name." and gretchen was comforted for the elector. * * * * * not long after that day of mourning came a day of rejoicing to our household, and to all the friendly circle at wittemberg. quietly, in our house, on june the d, dr. luther and catherine von bora were married. a few days afterwards the wedding feast was held on the home-bringing of the bride to the augustinian cloister, which, together with "twelve brewings of beer yearly," the good elector john frederic has given luther as a wedding present. brave old john luther and his wife, and luther's pious mother came to the feast from mansfeld, and a day of much festivity it was to all. and now for six months, what luther calls "that great thing, the union and communion between husband and wife," hath hallowed the old convent into a home, whilst the prayer of faith and the presence of him whom faith sees, have consecrated the home into a sanctuary of love and peace. many precious things hath dr. luther said of marriage. god, he says, has set the type of marriage before us throughout all creation. each creature seeks its perfection through being blent with another. the very heaven and earth picture it to us, for does not the sky embrace the green earth as its bride? "precious, excellent, glorious," he says, "is that word of the holy ghost, 'the heart of the husband doth safely trust in her.'" he says also, that so does he honour the married state, that before he thought of marrying his catherine, he had resolved, if he should be laid suddenly on his dying bed, to be espoused before he died, and to give two silver goblets to the maiden as his wedding and dying gift. and lately he counselled one who was to be married, "dear friend, do thou as i did, when i would take my käthe. i prayed to our lord god with all my heart. a good wife is a companion of life, and her husband's solace and joy, and when a pious man and wife love each other truly, the devil has little power to hurt them. "all men," he said, "believe and understand that marriage is marriage, a hand a hand, riches are riches; but to believe that marriage is of god, and ordered and appointed by god; that the hand is made by god, that wealth and all we have and are is given by god, and is to be used as his work to his praise, that is not so commonly believed. and a good wife," he said, "should be loved and honoured, firstly, because she is god's gift and present: secondly, because god has endowed women with noble and great virtues, which, when they are modest, faithful, and believing, far overbalance their little failings and infirmities." wittemberg, _december_, . another year all but closed--a year of mingled storm and sunshine? the sorrow we dreaded for our poor thekla is come at last too surely. bertrand de créquy is dead! he died in a prison alone, for conscience' sake, but at peace in god. a stranger from flanders brought her a few words of farewell in his handwriting, and afterwards saw him dead, so that she cannot doubt. she seems to move about like one walking in a dream, performing every common act of life as before, but with the soul asleep. we are afraid what will be the end of it. gold help her! she is now gone for the christmas to eva and fritz. sad divisions have sprung up among the evangelical christians. dr. luther is very angry at some doctrines of karlstadt and the swiss brethren concerning the holy sacraments, and says they will be wise above what is written. we grieve at these things, especially as our atlantis has married a swiss, and dr. luther will not acknowledge them as brethren. our poor atlantis is much perplexed, and writes that she is sure her husband meaneth not to undervalue the holy supper, and that in very truth they find their saviour present there as we do. but dr. luther is very stern about it. he fears disorders and wild opinions will be brought in again, such as led to the slaughter of the peasants' war. yet he himself is sorely distressed about it, and saith often that the times are so evil the end of the world is surely drawing nigh. in the midst of all this perplexity, we who love him rejoice that he has that quiet home in the augustei, where "lord käthe," as he calls her, and her little son hänschen reign, and where the dear, holy angels, as luther says, watch over the cradle of the child. it was a festival to all wittemberg when little hans luther was born. luther's house is like the sacred hearth of wittemberg and of all the land. there in the winter evenings he welcomes his friends to the cheerful room with the large window, and sometimes they sing good songs or holy hymns in parts, accompanied by the lute and harp, music at which dr. luther is sure king david would be amazed and delighted, could he rise from his grave, "since there can have been none so fine in his days." "the devil," he says, "always flies from music, especially from sacred music, because he is a despairing spirit, and cannot bear joy and gladness." and in the summer days he sits under the pear tree in his garden, while käthe works beside him; or he plants seeds and makes a fountain; or he talks to her and his friends about the wonders of beauty god has set in the humblest flowers, and the picture of the resurrection he gives us in every delicate twig that in spring bursts from the dry brown stems of winter. more and more we see what a good wife god has given him in catherine von bora, with her cheerful, firm, and active spirit, and her devoted affection for him. already she has the management of all the finance of the household, a very necessary arrangement, if the house of luther is not to go to ruin, for dr. luther would give everything, even to his clothes and furniture, to any one in distress, and he will not receive any payment either for his books or for teaching the students. she is a companion for him, moreover, and not a mere listener, which he likes, however much he may laugh at her eloquence, "in her own department surpassing cicero's," and sarcastically relate how when first they were married, not knowing what to say, but wishing to "make conversation," she used to say, as she sat at her work beside him, "herr doctor, is not the lord high chamberlain in prussia the brother of the margrave?" hoping that such high discourse would not be too trifling for him! he says, indeed, that if he were to seek an obedient wife, he would carve one for himself out of stone. but the belief among us is, that there are few happier homes than dr. luther's; and if at any time catherine finds him oppressed with a sadness too deep for her ministry to reach, she quietly creeps out and calls justus jones, or some other friend, to come and cheer the doctor. often, also, she reminds him of the letters he has to write; and he likes to have her sitting by him while he writes, which is a proof sufficient that she can be silent when necessary, whatever jests the doctor may make about her "long sermons, which she certainly never would have made, if, like other preachers, she had taken the precaution of beginning with the lord's prayer!" the christian married life, as he says, "is a humble and a holy life," and well, indeed, is it for our german reformation that its earthly centre is neither a throne, nor a hermitage, but a lowly christian home. parsonage of gersdorf, _june_, . i am staying with eva while fritz is absent making a journey of inspection of the schools throughout saxony at dr. luther's desire, with dr. philip melancthon, and many other learned men. dr. luther has set his heart on improving the education of the children, and is anxious to have some of the revenues of the suppressed convents appropriated to this purpose before all are quietly absorbed by the nobles and princes for their own uses. it is a renewal of youth to me, in my sober middle age, to be here along with eva, and yet not alone. for the terror of my youth is actually under our roof with me. _aunt agnes_ is an inmate of fritz's home! during the pillaging of the convents and dispersing of the nuns, which took place in the dreadful peasants' war, she was driven from nimptschen, and after spending a few weeks with our mother at wittemberg, has finally taken refuge with eva and fritz. but eva's little twin children, heinz and agnes, will associate a very different picture with the name of aunt agnes from the rigid lifeless face and voice which used to haunt my dreams of a religious life, and make me dread the heaven, of whose inhabitants, i was told, aunt agnes was a type. perhaps the white hair softens the high but furrowed brow; yet surely there was not that kindly gleam in the grave eyes i remember, or that tender tone in the voice. is it an echo of the voices of the little ones she so dearly loves, and a reflection of the sunshine in their eyes? no; better than that even, i know, because eva told me. it is the smile and the music of a heart made as that of a little child through believing in the saviour. it is the peace of the pharisee, who has won the publican's blessing by meekly taking the publican's place. i confess, however, i do not think aunt agnes's presence improves the discipline of eva's household. she is exceedingly slow to detect any traces of original sin in eva's children, while to me, on the contrary, the wonder is that any creature so good and exemplary as eva should have children so much like other people's--even mine. one would have thought that her infants would have been a kind of half angels, taking naturally to all good things, and never doing wrong except by mistake in a gentle and moderate way. whereas, i must say, i hear frequent little wails of rebellion from eva's nursery, especially at seasons of ablution, much as from mine; and i do not think even our fritz ever showed more decided pleasure in mischief, or more determined self-will, than eva's little rosy heinz. one morning after a rather prolonged little battle between heinz and his mother about some case of oppression of little agnes, i suggested to aunt agnes-- "only to think that eva, if she had kept to her vocation, might have attained to the full ideal of the theologia teutsch, have become a st. elizabeth, or indeed far better?" aunt agnes looked up quickly-- "and you mean to say she is not better now! you imagine that spinning meditations all day long is more christian work for a woman than training these little ones for god, and helping them to fight their first battles with the devil!" "perhaps not, aunt agnes," i said, "but then, you see, i know nothing of the inside of a convent." "_i do_," said aunt agnes emphatically, "and also the inside of a nun's heart. and i know what wretched work we make of it when we try to take our education out of our heavenly father's hands into our own. do you think," she continued, "eva did not learn more in the long nights when she watched over her sick child than she could have learned in a thousand self-imposed vigils before any shrine? and to-night, when she kneels with heinz, as she will, and says with him, 'pray god forgive little heinz for being a naughty boy to-day,' and lays him on his pillow, and as she watches him fall asleep, asks god to bless and train the wilful little one, and then asks for pardon herself, do you not think she learns more of what 'forgiveness' means and 'our father' than from a year's study of the theologia teutsch?" i smiled and said, "dear aunt agnes, if fritz wants to hear eva's praises well sung, i will tell him to suggest to you whether it might not have been a higher vocation for her to remain a nun!" "ah! child," said aunt agnes, with a little mingling of the old sternness, and the new tenderness in her voice, "if you had learned what i have from those lips, and in this house, you could not, even in jest, bear to hear a syllable of reflection on either." indeed, even aunt agnes cannot honour this dear home more than i do. open to every peasant who has a sorrow or a wrong to tell, it is also linked with the castle; and linked to both, not by any class privileges, but because here peasants and nobles alike are welcomed as men and women, and as christian brothers and sisters. now and then we pay a visit to the castle, where our noble sister chriemhild is enthroned. but my tastes have always been burgher like, and the parsonage suits me much better than the castle. besides, i cannot help feeling some little awe of dame hermentrud, especially when my two boys are with me, they being apt to indulge in a burgher freedom in their demeanour. the furniture and arrangements of the castle are a generation behind our own at wittemberg, and i cannot at all make the boys comprehend the majesty of the gersdorf ancestry, nor the necessary inferiority of people who live in streets to those who live in isolated rock fortresses. so that i am reduced to the bible law of "honour to grey hairs" to enforce due respect to dame hermentrud. little fritz wants to know what the gersdorf ancestry are renowned for. "was it for learning?" he asked. i thought not, as it is only this generation who have learned to read, and the old knight even is suspected of having strong reasons for preferring listening to ulrich's reading to using a book for himself. "was it then for courage?" "certainly, the gersdorfs had always been brave." "with whom, then, had they fought?" "at the time of the crusades, i believed, against the infidels." "and since then?" i did not feel sure, but looking at the ruined castle of bernstein and the neighbouring height, i was afraid it was against their neighbours. and so, after much cross questioning, the distinctions of the gersdorf family seemed to be chiefly reduced to their having been gersdorfs, and having lived at gersdorf for a great many hundred years. then fritz desired to know in what way his cousins, the gersdorfs of this generation, are to distinguish themselves? this question also was a perplexity to me, as i know it often is to chriemhild. they must not on any account be merchants; and now that in the evangelical church the great abbeys are suppressed, and some of the bishoprics are to be secularized, it is hardly deemed consistent with gersdorf dignity that they should become clergymen. the eldest will have the castle. one of them may study civil law. for the others nothing seems open but the idling dependent life of pages and military attendants in the castles of some of the greater nobles. if the past is the inheritance of the knights, it seems to me the future is far more likely to be the possession of the active burgher families. i cannot but feel thankful for the lot which opens to our boys honourable spheres of action in the great cities of the empire. there seems no room for expansion in the life of those petty nobles. while the patrician families of the cities are sailing on the broad current of the times, encouraging art, advancing learning, themselves sharing all the thought and progress of the time, these knightly families in the country remain isolated in their grim castles ruling over a few peasants, and fettered to a narrow local circle, while the great current of the age sweeps by them. gottfried says, narrow and ill-used privileges always end in ruining those who bigotedly cling to them. the exclusiveness which begins by shutting others out, commonly ends in shutting the exclusive in. the lordly fortress becomes the narrow prison. all these thoughts passed through my mind as i left the rush-strewn floor of the hall where dame hermentrud had received me and my boys, with a lofty condescension, while, in the course of the interview, i had heard her secretly remarking to chriemhild how unlike the cousins were; "it was quite singular how entirely the gersdorf children were unlike the cottas!" but it was not until i entered eva's lowly home, that i detected the bitter root of wounded pride from which my deep social speculations sprang. i had been avenging myself on the schönberg-gersdorf past by means of the cotta-reichenbach future. yes; fritz and eva's lowly home is nobler than chriemhild's, and richer than ours; richer and nobler just in as far as it is more lowly and more christian! and i learned my lesson after this manner. "dame hermentrud is very proud," i said to eva, as i returned from the castle and sat down beside her in the porch, where she was sewing; "and i really cannot see on what ground." eva made no reply, but a little amused smile played about her mouth, which for the moment rather aggravated me. "do you mean to say she is _not_ proud, eva?" i continued controversially. "i did not mean to say that any one was not proud," said eva. "did you mean then to imply that she has anything to be proud of?" "there are all the ghosts of all the gersdorfs," said eva; "and there is the high ancestral privilege of wearing velvet and pearls, which you and i dare not assume." "surely," said i, "the privilege of possessing lucas cranach's pictures, and albrecht dürer's carvings, is better than that." "perhaps it is," said eva demurely; "perhaps wealth is as firm ground for pride to build on as ancestral rank. those who have neither, like fritz and i, may be the most candid judges." i laughed, and felt a cloud pass from my heart. eva had dared to call the sprite which vexed me by his right name, and like any other gnome or cobold, he vanished instantly. thank god our eva is cousin eva again, instead of sister ave; that her single heart is here among us to flash the light on our consciences just by shining, instead of being hidden under a saintly canopy in the shrine of some distant convent. _july_, . fritz is at home. it was delightful to see what a festival his return was, not only in the home, but in the village--the children running to the doors to receive a smile, the mothers stopping in their work to welcome him. the day after his return was sunday. as usual, the children of the village were assembled at five o'clock in the morning to church. among them were our boys, and chriemhild's, and eva's twins, heinz and agnes--rosy, merry children of the forest as they are. all, however, looked as good and sweet as if they had been children of eden, as they tripped that morning after each other over the village green, their bright little forms passing in and out of the shadow of the great beech-tree which stands opposite the church. the little company all stood together in the church before the altar, while fritz stood on the step and taught them. at first they sang a hymn, the elder boys in latin, and then all together in german; and then fritz heard them say luther's catechism. how sweetly the lisping, childish voices answered his deep, manly voice; like the rustling of the countless summer leaves outside, or the fall of the countless tiny cascades of the village stream in the still summer morning. "my dear child, what art thou?" he said. answer from the score of little hushed, yet ringing voices-- "i am a christian." "how dost thou know that?" "because i am baptized, and believe on my dear lord jesus christ." "what is it needful that a christian should know for his salvation?" answer--"the catechism." and afterwards, in the part concerning the christian faith, the sweet voices repeated the creed in german. "i believe in god the father almighty." and fritz's voice asked gently-- "what does that mean?" answer--"i believe that god has created me and all creatures; has given me body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my limbs, reason, and all my senses, and still preserves them to me; and that he has also given me my clothes and my shoes, and whatsoever i eat or drink; that richly and daily he provides me with all needful nourishment for body and life, and guards me from all danger and evil; and all this out of pure fatherly divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or deserving of mine. and for all this i am bound to thank and praise him, and also to serve and obey him. this is certainly true." again-- "i believe in jesus christ," &c. "what does that mean?" "i believe that jesus christ, true god, begotten of the father from eternity, and also true man, born of the virgin mary, is my lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned human creature, has purchased and won me from all sins, from death and from the power of the devil, not with silver and gold, but with his own holy precious blood, and with his innocent suffering and dying, that i may be his own, and i live in his kingdom under him, and serve him in endless righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, even as he is risen from the dead, and lives and reigns forever. this is certainly true." and again, "i believe in the holy ghost." "what does that mean?" "i believe that not by my own reason or power can i believe on jesus christ my lord, or come to him; but the holy ghost has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in the right faith, as he calls all christian people on earth, gathers, enlightens, sanctifies them, and through jesus keeps them in the right and only faith, among which christian people he daily richly forgives all sins, to me and all believers, and at the last day will awaken me and all the dead, and to me and all believers in christ will give eternal life. this is certainly true." and again, on the lord's prayer, the children's voices began,-- "our father who art in heaven." "what does that mean?" "god will in this way sweetly persuade us to believe that he is our true father, and that we are his true children; that cheerfully and with all confidence we may ask of him as dear children ask of their dear fathers." and at the end, "what does amen mean?" "that i should be sure such prayers are acceptable to the father in heaven, and granted by him, for he himself has taught us thus to pray, and promised that he will hear us. amen, amen--that means, _yes, yes, that shall be done_." and when it was asked,-- "who receives the holy sacrament worthily?" softly came the answer,-- "he is truly and rightly prepared who has faith in these words, 'given and shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins.' but he who doubts or disbelieves these words, is unworthy and unprepared; for the words, '_for you_,' need simple believing hearts." as i listened to the simple living words, i could not wonder that dr. luther often repeats them to himself, or rather, as he says, '_to god_,' as an antidote to the fiery darts of the wicked one. and so the childish voices died away in the morning stillness of the church, and the shadow of the bell-tower fell silently across the grassy mounds or wooden crosses beneath which rest the village dead; and as we went home, the long shadow of the beech-tree fell on the dewy village green. then, before eleven o'clock, the church bell began to ring, and the peasants came trooping from the different clearings of the forest. one by one we watched the various groups in their bright holiday dresses, issuing out of the depths of dark green shade, among them, doubtless, many a branch of the luther family who live in this neighbourhood. afterwards each door in the village poured out its contributions, and soon the little church was full, the men and women seated on the opposite sides of the church, and the aged gathered around the pulpit. fritz's text was eva's motto, "_god so loved the world._" simply, with illustrations such as they could understand, he spoke to them of god's infinite love, and the infinite cost at which he had redeemed us, and of the love and trust and obedience we owe him, and, according to dr. luther's advice he did not speak too long, but "called black black, and white white, keeping to one simple subject, so that the people may go away and say, '_the sermon was about this._'" for, as i heard dr. luther say, "we must not speak to the common people of high difficult things, or with mysterious words. to the church come little children, maid-servants, old men and women, to whom high doctrine teaches nothing. for, if they say about it, 'ah, he said excellent things, he has made a fine sermon!' and one asks, 'what about, then?' they reply, 'i know not.' let us remember what pains our lord christ took to preach simply. from the vineyard, from the sheepfold, from trees, he drew his illustrations, all that the people might feel and understand." that sermon of fritz's left a deep rest in my heart. he spoke not of justification, and redemption merely, but of the living god redeeming and justifying us. greater service can no one render us than to recall to us what god has done for us, and how he really and tenderly cares for us. in the afternoon, the children were gathered for a little while in the school-room, and questioned about the sermon. at sunset again we all met for a short service in the church, and sang evening hymns in german, after which the pastor pronounced the benediction, and the little community scattered once more to their various homes. with the quiet sunshine, and the light shed on the home by fritz's return, to-day seemed to me almost like a day in paradise. thank god again and again for dr. luther, and especially for these two great benefits given back to us through him--first, that he has unsealed the fountain of god's word from the icy fetters of the dead language, and sent it flowing through the land, everywhere wakening winter into spring; and secondly, that he has vindicated the sanctity of marriage and the home life it constitutes; unsealing the grave-stones of the convent gates, and sending forth the religion entranced and buried there to bless the world in a thousand lowly, holy, christian homes such as this. xxxi. thekla's story. wittemberg, _september_, . i have said it from my heart at last! yes, i am sure i say it from my heart, and if with a broken heart, god will not despise that. "_our father_ which art in heaven, _thy will, not mine be done_." i thought i could bear anything better than suspense; but i had no idea what a blank of despair the certainty would bring. then came dreadful rebellious thoughts, that god should let him die alone; and then recurred to my heart all they had said to me about not making idols, and i began to fear i had never really loved or worshipped god at all, but only bertrand; and then came a long time of blank and darkness into which no light of human or divine love or voices of comfort seemed in the least to penetrate. i thought god would never receive me until i could say, "thy will be done," and this i could not say. the first words i remember that seemed to convey any meaning at all to me were some of dr. luther's in a sermon. he said it was easy to believe in god's pardoning love in times of peace, but in times of temptation when the devil assailed the soul with all his fiery darts, he himself found it hard, indeed, to hold to the truth he knew so well, that christ was not a severe judge, or a hard exactor, but a forgiving saviour, indeed love itself, pure unalterable love. then i began to understand it was _the devil_, the malignant exacting evil spirit that i had been listening to in the darkness of my heart, that it was he who had been persuading me i must not dare to go to my father, before i could bring him a perectly submissive heart. and then i remembered the words, "come unto me, ye that are weary and heavy laden;" and, alone in my room, i fell on my knees, and cried, "o blessed saviour, o heavenly father, i am not submissive; but i am weary, weary and heavy-laden; and i come to thee. wilt thou take me as i am, and teach me in time to say, 'thy will be done!'" and he received me, and in time he has taught me. at least i can say so to-night. to-morrow, perhaps, the old rebellion will come back. but if it does, i will go again to our heavenly father and say again, "not submissive yet, only heavy-laden! father, take my hand, and say, begin again!" because amidst all these happy homes i felt so unnecessary to any one, and so unutterably lonely. i longed for the old convents to bury myself in, away from all joyous sounds. but, thank god, they were closed for me; and i do not wish for them now. dr. luther began to help me by showing me how the devil had been keeping me from god. and now god has helped me by sending through my heart again a glow of thankfulness and love. the plague has been at wittemberg again. dr. luther's house has been turned into an hospital; for dear as are his käthe and his little hans to him, he would not flee from the danger, any more than years ago, when he was a monk in the convent which is now his home. and what a blessing his strong and faithful words have been among us, from the pulpit, by the dying bed, or in the house of mourning. but it is through my precious mother chiefly that god has spoken to my heart, and made me feel he does indeed sustain, and care, and listen. she was so nearly gone. and now she is recovering. they say the danger is over. and never more will i say in my heart, "to me only god gives no home," or fear to let my heart entwine too closely round those god has left me to love, because of the anguish when that clasp is severed. i will take the joy and the love with all its possibilities of sorrow, and trust in god for both. perhaps, also, god may have some little work of love for me to do, some especial service even for me, to make me needed in the world as long as i am here. for to-day justus jonas, who has lost his little son in the plague, came to me and said,-- "thekla, come and see my wife. she says you can comfort her, for you can comprehend sorrow." of course i went. i do not think i said anything to comfort her. i could do little else but weep with her, as i looked on the little, innocent, placid, lifeless face. but when i left her she said i had done her good, and begged me to come again. so, perhaps, god has some blessed services for me to render him, which i could only have learned as he has taught me; and when we meet hereafter, bertrand and i, and hear that dear divine and human voice that has led us through the world, we _together_ shall be glad of all this bitter pain that we endured and felt, and give thanks for it for ever and for ever! xxxii. elsè's story. wittemberg, _may_, . of all the happy homes god has given to germany through dr. luther, i think none are happier than his own. the walls of the augustine convent echo now with the pattering feet and ringing voices of little children, and every night the angels watch over the sanctuary of a home. the birthdays of dr. luther's children are festivals to us all, and more especially the birthday of little hans the first-born was so. yet death also has been in that bright home. their second child, a babe, elizabeth, was early taken from her parents. dr. luther grieved over her much. a little while after her death he wrote to his friend hausmann: "grace and peace. my johannulus thanks thee, best nicholas, for the rattle, in which he glories and rejoices wondrously. "i have begun to write something about the turkish war, which will not, i hope, be useless. "my little daughter is dead; my darling little elizabeth. it is strange how sick and wounded she has left my heart, almost as tender as a woman's, such pity moves me for that little one. i never could have believed before what is the tenderness of a father's heart for his children. do thou pray to the lord for me, in whom fare-thee-well." catherine von bora is honoured and beloved by all. some indeed complain of her being too economical; but what would become of dr. luther and his family if she were as reckless in giving as he is? he has been known even to take advantage of her illness to bestow his plate on some needy student. he never will receive a kreuzer from the students he teaches, and he refuses to sell his writings, which provokes both gottfried and me, noble as it is of him, because the great profits they bring would surely be better spent by dr. luther than by the printers who get them now. our belief is, that were it not for mistress luther, the whole household would have long since been reduced to beggary, and dr. luther, who does not scruple to beg of the elector or of any wealthy person for the needs of others (although never for his own), knows well how precarious such a livelihood is. his wife does not, however, always succeed in restraining his propensities to give everything away. not long ago, in defiance of her remonstrating looks, in her presence he bestowed on a student who came to him asking money to help him home from the university, a silver goblet which had been presented to him, saying that he had no need to drink out of silver. we all feel the tender care with which she watches over his health, a gift to the whole land. his strength has never quite recovered the strain on it during those years of conflict and penance in the monastery at erfurt. and it is often strained to the utmost now. all the monks and nuns who have renounced their idle maintenance in convents for conscience' sake; all congregations that desire an evangelical pastor; all people of all kinds in trouble of mind, body, or estate, turn to dr. luther for aid or counsel, as to the warmest heart and the clearest head in the land. his correspondence is incessant, embracing and answering every variety of perplexity, from counselling evangelical princes how best to reform their states, to directions to some humble christian woman how to find peace for her conscience in christ. and besides the countless applications to him for advice, his large heart seems always at leisure to listen to the appeal of the persecuted far and near, or to the cry of the bereaved and sorrowful. where shall we find the spring of all this activity but in the _bible_, of which he says, "there are few trees in that garden which i have not shaken for fruit;" and in _prayer_, of which he, the busiest man in christendom, (as if he were a contemplative hermit) says, "prayer is the christian's business (das gebet ist des christen handwerk)." yes, it is the leisure he makes for prayer which gives leisure for all besides. it is the hours passed with the life-giving word which make sermons, and correspondence, and teaching of all kinds to him simply the out-pouring of a full heart. yet such a life wears out too quickly. more than once has mistress luther been in sore anxiety about him during the four years they have been married. once, in , when little hans was the baby, and he believed he should soon have to leave her a widow with the fatherless little one, he said rather sadly he had nothing to leave her but the silver tankards which had been presented to him. "dear doctor," she replied, "if it be god's will, then i also choose that you be with him rather than me. it is not so much i and my child even that need you as the multitude of pious christians. trouble yourself not about me." what her courageous hopefulness and her tender watchfulness have been to him, he showed when he said,-- "i am too apt to expect more from my käthe, and from melancthon, than i do from christ, my lord. and yet i well know that neither they nor any one on earth has suffered, or can suffer, what he hath suffered for me." but although incessant work may weigh upon his body, there are severer trials which weigh upon his spirit. the heart so quick to every touch of affection or pleasure cannot but be sensitive to injustice or disappointment. it cannot therefore be easy for him to bear that at one time it should be perilous for him to travel on account of the indignation of the nobles, whose relatives he has rescued from nunneries; and at another time equally unsafe because of the indignation of the peasants, for whom, though he boldly and openly denounced their made insurrection, he pleads fervently with nobles and princes. but bitterer than all other things to him, are the divisions among evangelical christians. every truth he believes flashes on his mind with such overwhelming conviction that it seems to him nothing but incomprehensible wilfulness for any one else not to see it. every conviction he holds, he holds with the grasp of one ready to die for it--not only with the tenacity of possession, but of a soldier to whom its defence has been intrusted. he would not, indeed, have any put to death or imprisoned for their misbelief. but hold out the hand of fellowship to those who betray any part of his lords trust, he thinks,--how dare he? are a few peaceable days to be purchased at the sacrifice of eternal truth? and so the division has taken place between us and the swiss. my gretchen perplexed me the other day, when we were coming from the city church, where dr. luther had been preaching against the anabaptists and the swiss, (whom he will persist in classing together,) by saying,-- "mother, is not uncle winkelried a swiss, and is he not a good man?" "of course uncle conrad is a good man, gretchen," rejoined our fritz, who had just returned from a visit to atlantis and conrad. "how can you ask such questions?" "but he is a swiss, and dr. luther said we must take care not to be like the swiss, because they say wicked things about the holy sacraments." "i am sure uncle conrad does not say wicked things," retorted fritz, vehemently. "i think he is almost the best man i ever saw. mother," he continued, "why does dr. luther speak so of the swiss?" "you see, fritz," i said, "dr. luther never stayed six months among them as you did; and so he has never seen how good they are at home." "then," rejoined fritz, sturdily, "if dr. luther has not seen them, i do not think he should speak so of them." i was driven to have recourse to maternal authority to close the discussion, reminding fritz that he was a little boy, and could not pretend to judge of good and great men, like dr. luther. but, indeed, i could not help half agreeing with the child. it was impossible to make him understand how dr. luther has fought his way inch by inch to the freedom in which we now stand at ease; how he detests the zwinglian doctrines, not so much for themselves, as for what he thinks they imply. how will it be possible to make our children, who enter on the peaceful inheritance so dearly won, understand the rough, soldierly vehemence, of the warrior race, who re-conquered that inheritance for them? as dr. luther says, "it is not a little thing to change the whole religion and doctrine of the papacy. how hard it has been to me, they will see in that day. now no one believes it!" god appointed david to fight the wars of israel, and solomon to build the temple. dr. luther has had to do both. what wonder if the hand of the soldier can sometimes be traced in the work of peace! yet, why should i perplex myself about this? soon, too soon, death will come, and consecrate the virtues of our generation to our children, and throw a softening veil over our mistakes. even now that dr. luther is absent from us at coburg, in the castle there, how precious his letters are; and how doubly sacred the words he preached to us last sunday from the pulpit, now that to-morrow we are not to hear him. he is placed in the castle at coburg, in order to be nearer the diet at augsburg, so as to aid dr. melancthon, who is there, with his counsel. the elector dare not trust the royal heart and straightforward spirit of our luther among the prudent diplomatists at the diet. mistress luther is having a portrait taken of their little magdalen, who is now a year old, and especially dear to the doctor, to send to him in the fortress. _june_, . letters have arrived from and about dr. luther. his father is dead--the brave, persevering, self-denying, truthful old man, who had stamped so much of his own character on his son. "it is meet i should mourn such a parent," luther writes, "who through the sweat of his brow had nurtured and educated me, and made me what i am." he felt it keenly, especially since he could not be with his father at the last; although he gives thanks that he lived in these times of light, and departed strong in the faith of christ. dr. luther's secretary writes, however, that the portrait of his little magdalen comforts him much. he has hung it on the wall opposite to the place where he sits at meals. dr. luther is now the eldest of his race. he stands in the foremost rank of the generations slowly advancing to confront death. to-day i have been sitting with mistress luther in the garden behind the augustei, under the shade of the pear-tree, where she so often sits beside the doctor. our children were playing around us--her little hänschen with the boys, while the little magdalen sat cooing like a dove over some flowers, which she was pulling to pieces, on the grass at our feet. she talked to me much about the doctor; how dearly he loves the little ones, and what lessons of divine love and wisdom he learns from their little plays. he says often, that beautiful as all god's works are, little children are the fairest of all; that the dear angels especially watch over them. he is very tender with them, and says sometimes they are better theologians than he is, for they trust god. deeper prayers and higher theology he never hopes to reach than the first the little ones learn--the lord's prayer and the catechism. often, she said, he says over the catechism, to remind himself of all the treasures of faith we possess. it is delightful too, she says, to listen to the heavenly theology he draws from birds and leaves and flowers, and the commonest gifts of god or events of life. at table, a plate of fruit will open to him a whole volume of god's bounty, on which he will discourse. or, taking a rose in his hand, he will say, "a man who could make one rose like this would be accounted most wonderful; and god scatters countless such flowers around us! but the very infinity of his gifts makes us blind to them." and one evening, he said of a little bird, warbling its last little song before it went to roost, "ah, dear little bird! he has chosen his shelter, and is quietly rocking himself to sleep, without a care for to-morrow's lodging; calmly holding by his little twig, and leaving god to think for him." in spring he loves to direct her attention to the little points and tufts of life peeping everywhere from the brown earth or the bare branches. "who," he said, "that had never witnessed a spring-time would have guessed, two months since, that these lifeless branches had concealed within them all that hidden power of life? it will be thus with us at the resurrection. god writes his gospel, not in the bible alone, but in trees, and flowers, and clouds, and stars." and thus, to mistress luther, that little garden, with his presence and his discourse, has become like an illuminated gospel and psalter. i ventured to ask her some questions, and, among others, if she had ever heard him speak of using a form of words in prayer. she said she had once heard him say "we might use forms of words in private prayer until the wings and feathers of our souls are grown, that we may soar freely upward into the pure air of god's presence." but _his_ prayers, she says, are sometimes like the trustful pleadings of his little boy hänschen with him; and sometimes like the wrestling of a giant in an agony of conflict. she said, also, that she often thanks god for the doctor's love of music. when his mind and heart have been strained to the utmost, music seems to be like a bath of pure fresh water to his spirit, bracing and resting it at once. i indeed have myself heard him speak of this, when i have been present at the meetings he has every week at his house for singing in parts. "the devil," he says--"that lost spirit--cannot endure sacred songs of joy. our passions and impatiences, our complainings and our cryings, our alas! and our woe is me! please him well; but our songs and psalms vex him and grieve him sorely." mistress luther told me she had many an anxious hour about the doctor's health. he is often so sorely pressed with work and care; and he has never recovered the weakening effects of his early fasts and conflicts. his tastes at table are very simple, his favourite dishes are herrings and pease-soup. his habits are abstemious, and when engrossed with any especial work, he would forget or go without his meals altogether if she did not press him to take them. when writing his commentary on the twenty-second psalm, he shut himself up for three days with nothing but bread and salt; until, at last, she had to send for a locksmith to break open the door, when they found him absorbed in meditation. and yet, with all his deep thoughts and his wide cares, like a king's or an archbishop's, he enters into his children's games as if he were a boy; and never fails, if he is at a fair on his travels, to bring the little ones home some gift for a fairing. she showed me a letter she had just received from him from coburg, for his little son hänschen. she allowed me to copy it. it is written thus:-- "grace and peace in christ to my heartily dear little son. "i see gladly that thou learnest well and prayest earnestly. do thus, my little son, and go on. when i come home i will bring thee a beautiful fairing. i know a pleasant garden, wherein many children walk about. they have little golden coats, and pick up beautiful apples under the trees, and pears, cherries, and plums. they dance and are merry, and have also beautiful little ponies, with golden reins and silver saddles. then i asked the man whose the garden is, whose children those were. he said, 'these are the children who love to pray, who learn their lessons, and are good.' then i said, 'dear man, i also have a little son; he is called hänsichen luther. might not he also come into the garden, that he might eat such apples and pears, and ride on such beautiful little ponies, and play with these children?' then the man said, 'if he loves to pray, learn his lessons, and is good, he also shall come into the garden--lippus and jost also (the little sons of melancthon and justus jonas); and when they all come together, they also shall have pipes, drums, lutes, and all kinds of music; and shall dance, and shoot with little bows and arrows.' "and he showed me there a fair meadow in the garden, prepared for dancing. there were many pipes of pure gold, drums, and silver bows and arrows. but it was still early in the day, so that the children had not had their breakfasts. therefore i could not wait for the dancing, and said to the man, 'ah, dear sir, i will go away at once, and write all this to my little son hänsichen, that he may be sure to pray and to learn well, and be good, that he also may come into this garden. but he has a dear aunt, lena; he must bring her with him.' then said the man, 'let it be so; go and write him thus.' "therefore, my dear little son hänsichen, learn thy lessons, and pray with a cheerful heart; and tell all this to lippus and justus too, that they also may learn their lessons and pray. so shall you all come together into this garden. herewith i commend you to the almighty god; and greet aunt lena, and give her a kiss from me.--thy dear father, "martin luther." some who have seen this letter say it is too trifling for such serious subjects. but heaven is not a grim and austere, but a most bright and joyful place; and dr. luther is only telling the child in his own childish language what a happy place it is. does not god our heavenly father do even so with us? i should like to have seen dr. luther turn from his grave letters to princes and doctors about the great augsburg confession, which they are now preparing, to write these loving words to his little hans. no wonder "catharine lutherinn," "doctoress luther," "mea dominus ketha," "my lord käthe," as he calls her, is a happy woman. happy for germany that the catechism in which our children learn the first elements of divine truth, grew out of the fatherly heart of luther, instead of being put together by a diet or a general council. one more letter i have copied, because my children were so interested in it. dr. luther finds at all times great delight in the songs of birds. the letter i have copied was written on the th april to his friends who meet around his table at home. "grace and peace in christ, dear sirs and friends! i have received all your letters, and understand how things are going on with you. that you, on the other hand, may understand how things are going on here, i would have you know that we, namely, i, master veit, and cyriacus, are not going to the diet at augsburg. we have, however, another diet of our own here. "just under our window there is a grove like a little forest, where the choughs and crows have convened a diet, and there is such a riding hither and thither, such an incessant tumult, day and night, as if they were all merry and mad with drinking. young and old chatter together, until i wonder how their breath can hold out so long. i should like to know if any of those nobles and cavaliers are with you; it seems to me they must be gathered here out of the whole world. "i have not yet seen their emperor; but their great people are always strutting and prancing before our eyes, not, indeed, in costly robes, but all simply clad in one uniform, all alike black, all alike grey-eyed, and all singing one song, only with the most amusing varieties between young and old, and great and small. they are not careful to have a great palace and hall of assembly, for their hall is vaulted with the beautiful, broad sky, their floor is the field strewn with fair, green branches, and their walls reach as far as the ends of the world. neither do they require steeds and armour; they have feathered wheels with which they fly from shot and danger. they are, doubtless, great and mighty lords, but what they are debating i do not yet know. "as far, however, as i understand through an interpreter, they are planning a great foray and campaign against the wheat, barley, oats, and all kinds of grain, and many a knight will win his spurs in this war, and many a brave deed will be done. "thus we sit here in our diet, and hear and listen with great delight, and learn how the princes and lords, with all the other estates of the empire, sing and live so merrily. but our especial pleasure is to see how cavalierly they pace about, whet their beaks, and furbish their armour, that they may win glory and victory from wheat and oats. we wish them health and wealth,--and that they may all at once be impaled on a quickset hedge! "for i hold they are nothing better than sophists and papists with their preaching and writing; and i should like to have these also before me in our assembly, that i might hear their pleasant voices and sermons, and see what a useful people they are to devour all that is on the face of the earth, and afterwards chatter no one knows how long! "to-day we have heard the first nightingale; for they would not trust april. we have had delightful weather here, no rain, except a little yesterday. with you, perhaps, it is otherwise. herewith i commend you to god. keep house well. given from the diet of the grain-turks, the th of april, anno . "martinus luther." yet, peaceful and at leisure as he seems, gottfried says the whole of germany is leaning now once more on the strength of that faithful heart. the roman diplomatists again and again have all but persuaded melancthon to yield everything for peace; and, but for the firm and faithful words which issue from "this wilderness," as luther calls the coburg fortress, gottfried believes all might have gone wrong. severely and mournfully has dr. luther been constrained to write more than once to "philip pusillanimity," demanding that at least he should not give up the doctrine of justification by faith, and abandon all to the decision of the bishops! it is faith which gives luther this clearness of vision. "it is god's word and cause," he writes, "therefore our prayer is certainly heard, and already he has determined and prepared the help that shall help us. this cannot fail. for he says, 'can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will i not forget thee. see, i have graven thee on the palms of my hands.' i have lately seen two miracles," he continues; "the first, as i was looking out of my window and saw the stars in heaven, and all that beautiful vaulted roof of god, and yet saw no pillars on which the master builder had fixed this vault; yet the heaven fell not, but all that grand arch stood firm. now, there are some who search for such pillars, and want to touch and grasp them, and since they cannot, they wonder and tremble as if the heaven must certainly fall, for no other reason but because they cannot touch and grasp its pillars. if they could lay hold on those, think they, then the heaven would stand firm! "the second miracle was--i saw great clouds rolling over us, with such a ponderous weight that they might be compared to a great ocean, and yet i saw no foundation on which they rested or were based, nor any shore which kept them back; yet they fell not on us, but frowned on us with a stern countenance, and fled. but when they had passed by, then shone forth both their foundation and our roof which had kept them back--the rainbow! truly a weak, thin, slight foundation and roof, which soon melted away into the clouds, and was more like a shadowy prism, such as we see through coloured glass, than a strong and firm foundation! so that we might well distrust that feeble dyke which kept back that terrible weight of waters. yet we found, in fact, that this unsubstantial prism could bear up the weight of waters, and that it guards us safely. but there are some who look rather at the thickness and massy weight of the waters and clouds, than at this thin, slight, narrow bow of promise. they would like to _feel the strength_ of that shadowy, evanescent arch, and because they cannot do this, they are ever fearing that the clouds will bring back the deluge." heavenly father, since one man who trusts thy word can thus uphold a nation, what could not thy word do for each of us if we would each of us thus trust it, and thee who speakest it. xxxiii. thekla's story. wittemberg, . the time i used to dread most of all in my life, after that great bereavement which laid it waste, is come. i am in the monotonous level of solitary middle age. the sunny heights of childhood, and even the joyous breezy slopes of youth, are almost out of sight behind me; and the snowy heights of reverend age, from which we can look over into the promised land beyond, are almost as far before me. other lives have grown from the bubbling spring into the broad and placid river, while mine is still the little narrow stream it was at first; only, creeping slow and noiseless through the flats, instead of springing gladly from rock to rock, making music wherever it came. yet i am content; absolutely, fully content. i am sure that my life also has been ordered by the highest wisdom and love; and that (as far as my faithless heart does not hinder it) god is leading me also on to the very highest and best destiny for me. i did not always think so. i used to fear that not only would this bereavement throw a shadow on my earthly life, but that it would stunt and enfeeble my nature for ever; that missing all the sweet, ennobling relationships of married life, even throughout the ages i should be but an undeveloped, one-sided creature. but one day i was reading in dr. luther's german bible the chapter about the body of christ, the twelfth of first corinthians, and great comfort came into my heart through it. i saw that we are not meant to be separate atoms, each complete in itself, but members of a body, each only complete through union with all the rest. and then i saw how entirely unimportant it is in what place christ shall set me in his body; and how impossible it is for us to judge what he is training us for, until the body is perfected and we see what we are to be in it. on the düben heath also, soon after, when i was walking home with elsè's gretchen, the same lesson came to me in a parable, through a clump of trees under the shade of which we were resting. often, from a distance, we had admired the beautiful symmetry of the group, and now, looking up, i saw how imperfect every separate tree was, all leaning in various directions, and all only developed on one side. if each tree had said, "i am a beech tree, and i ought to throw out branches on every side, like my brother standing alone on the heath," what would have become of that beautiful clump? and looking up through the green interwoven leaves to the blue sky i said,-- "heavenly father, thou art wise! i will doubt no more. plant me where thou wilt in thy garden, and let me grow as thou wilt! thou wilt not let me fail of my highest end." dr. luther also said many things which helped me from time to time, in conversation or in his sermons. "the barley," he said, "must suffer much from man. first, it is cast into the earth that it may decay. then, when it is grown up and ripe, it is cut and mown down. then it is crushed and pressed, fermented and brewed into beer. "just such a martyr also is the linen or flax. when it is ripe it is plucked, steeped in water, beaten, dried, hacked, spun, and woven into linen, which again is torn and cut. afterwards it is made into plaster for sores, and used for binding up wounds. then it becomes lint, is laid under the stamping machines in the paper mill, and torn into small bits. from this they make paper for writing and printing. "these creatures, and many others like them, which are of great use to us, must thus suffer. thus also must good, godly christians suffer much from the ungodly and wicked. thus, however, the barley, wine, and corn are ennobled; in man becoming flesh, and in the christian man's flesh entering into the heavenly kingdom." often he speaks of the "dear, holy cross, a portion of which is given to all christians." "all the saints," he said once, when a little child of one of his friends lay ill, "must drink of the bitter cup. could mary even, the dear mother of our lord, escape? all who are dear to him must suffer. christians conquer when they suffer; only when they rebel and resist are they defeated and lose the day." he, indeed, knows what trial and temptation mean. many a bitter cup has he had to drink, he to whom the sins, and selfishness, and divisions of christians are personal sorrow and shame. it is therefore, no doubt, that he knows so well how to sustain and comfort. those, he says, who are to be the bones and sinews of the church must expect the hardest blows. well i remember his saying, when, on the th of august, , before his going to coburg, he and his wife lay sick of a fever, while he suffered also from sciatica, and many other ailments,-- "god has touched me sorely. i have been impatient; but god knows better than i whereto it serves. _our lord god is like a printer who sets the letters backwards, so that here we cannot read them. when we are printed off yonder, in the life to come, we shall read all clear and straightforward._ meantime we must have patience." in other ways more than i can number he and his words have helped me. no one seems to understand as he does what the devil is and does. it is the _temptation_ in the sorrow which is the thing to be dreaded and guarded against. this was what i did not understand at first when bertrand died. i thought i was rebellious, and dared not approach god till i ceased to feel rebellious. i did not understand that the malignant one who tempted me to rebel also tempted me to think god would not forgive. i had thought before of affliction as a kind of sanctuary where naturally i should feel god near. i had to learn that it is also night-time, even "the hour of darkness," in which the prince of darkness draws near unseen. as luther says, "the devil torments us in the place where we are most tender and weak, as in paradise he fell not on adam, but on eve." inexpressible was the relief to me when i learned who had been tormenting me, and turned to him who vanquished the tempter of old to banish him now from me. for terrible as dr. luther knows that fallen angel to be,--"the antithesis," as he said, "of the ten commandments," who for thousands of years has been studying with an angel's intellectual power, or how most effectually to distress and ruin man,--he always reminds us that, nevertheless, the devil is a vanquished foe, that the victory has not now to be won; that, bold as the evil one is to assail and tempt the unguarded, a word or look of faith will compel him to flee "like a beaten hound." it is this blending of the sense of satan's power to tempt, with the conviction of his powerlessness to injure the believing heart, which has so often sustained me in dr. luther's words. but it is not only thus that he has helped me. he presses on us often the necessity of occupation. it is better, he says, to engage in the humblest work, than to sit still alone and encounter the temptations of satan. "oft in my temptations i have need to talk even with a child, in order to expel such thoughts as the devil possesses me with; and this teaches me not to boast as if of myself i were able to help myself, and to subsist without the strength of christ. i need one at times to help me who in his whole body has not as much theology as i have in one finger." "the human heart," he says, "is like a millstone in a mill: when you put wheat under it, it turns, and grinds, and bruises the wheat to flour; if you put no wheat it still grinds on, but then it is itself it grinds and wears away. so the human heart, unless it be occupied with some employment, leaves space for the devil, who wriggles himself in, and brings with him a whole host of evil thoughts, temptations, tribulations, which grind away the heart." after hearing him say this, i tried hard to find myself some occupation. at first it seemed difficult. elsè wanted little help with her children, or only occasionally. at home the cares of poverty were over, and my dear father and mother lived in comfort, without my aid. i used discontentedly to wish sometimes that we were poor again, as in elsè's girlish days, that i might be needed, and really feel it of some use to spin and embroider, instead of feeling that i only worked for the sake of not being idle, and that no one would be the better for what i did. at other times i used to long to seclude myself from all the happy life around, and half to reproach dr. luther in my heart for causing the suppression of the convents. in a nunnery, at least, i thought i should have been something definite and recognized, instead of the negative, undeveloped creature, i felt myself to be, only distinguished from those around by the absence of what made their lives real and happy. my mother's recovery from the plague helped to cure me of that, by reminding me of the home blessings still left. i began, too, to confide once more in god, and i was comforted by thinking of what my grandmother said to me one day when i was a little girl, crying hopelessly over a tangled skein and sobbing, "i shall never untangle it." "wind, dear child, _wind on_, inch by inch, undo each knot one by one, and the skein will soon disentangle itself." so i resolved to wind on my little thread of life day by day, and undo one little knot after another, until now, indeed, the skein has disentangled itself. few women, i think, have a life more full of love and interest than mine. i have undertaken the care of a school for little girls, among whom are two orphans, made fatherless by the peasants' war, who were sent to us; and this also i owe to dr. luther. he has nothing more at heart than the education of the young; nothing gives him more pain than to see the covetousness which grudges funds for schools; and nothing more joy than to see the little ones grow up in all good knowledge. as he wrote to the elector john from coburg twelve years ago:-- "the merciful god shows himself indeed gracious in making his word so fruitful in your land. the tender little boys and maidens are so well instructed in the catechism and scriptures, that my heart melts when i see that young boys and girls can pray, believe, and speak better of god and christ than all the convents and schools could in the olden time. "such youth in your grace's land are a fair paradise, of which the like is not in the world. it is as if god said, 'courage, dear duke john, i commit to thee my noblest treasure, my pleasant paradise; thou shalt be father over it. for under thy guard and rule i place it, and give thee the honour that thou shalt be my gardener and steward.' this is assuredly true. it is even as if our lord himself were your grace's guest and ward, since his word and his little ones are your perpetual guests and wards." for a little while a lady, a friend of his wife, resided in his house in order to commence such a school at wittemberg for young girls; and now it has become my charge. and often dr. luther comes in and lays his hands on the heads of the little ones, and asks god to bless them, or listens while they repeat the catechism or the holy scriptures. _december_ , . once more the christmas tree has been planted in our homes at wittemberg. how many such happy christian homes there are among us! our elsè's, justus jonas', and his gentle, sympathizing wife, who, dr. luther says, "always brings comfort in her kind pleasant countenance." we all meet at elsè's home on such occasions now. the voices of the children are better than light to the blind eyes of my father, and my mother renews her own maternal joys again in her grandchildren, without the cares. but of all these homes, none is happier or more united than dr. luther's. his child-like pleasure in little things makes every family festival in his house so joyous; and the children's plays and pleasures, as well as their little troubles, are to him a perpetual parable of the heavenly family, and of our relationship to god. there are five children in his family now; hans, the first born; magdalen, a lovely, loving girl of thirteen; paul, martin, and margaretha. how good it is for those who are bereaved and sorrowful that our christian festivals point forward and upward as well as backward; that the eternal joy to which we are drawing ever nearer is linked to the earthly joy which has passed away. yes, the old heathen tree of life, which that young green fir from the primeval forests of our land is said to typify, has been christened into the christmas tree. the old tree of life was a tree of sorrow, and had its roots in the evanescent earth, and at its base sat the mournful destinies, ready to cut the thread of human life. nature ever renewing herself contrasted mournfully with the human life that blooms but once. but our tree of life is a tree of joy, and is rooted in the eternal paradise of joy. the angels watch over it, and it recalls the birth of the second man--the lord from heaven--who is not merely "a living soul, but a life-giving spirit." in it the evanescence of nature, immortal as she seems, is contrasted with the true eternal life of mortal man. in the joy of the little ones, once more, thank god, my whole heart seems to rejoice; for i also have my face towards the dawn, and i can hear the fountain of life bubbling up whichever way i turn. only, _before_ me it is best and freshest! for it is springing up to life everlasting. _december_, . a shadow has fallen on the peaceful home of dr. luther: magdalen, the unselfish, obedient, pious, loving child--the darling of her father's heart--is dead; the first-born daughter, whose portrait, when she was a year old, used to cheer and delight him at coburg. on the th of this last september she was taken ill, and then luther wrote at once to his friend marcus crodel to send his son john from torgau, where he was studying, to see his sister. he wrote,-- "grace and peace, my marcus crodel. i request that you will conceal from my john what i am writing to you. my daughter magdalen is literally almost at the point of death--soon about to depart to her father in heaven, unless it should yet seem fit to god to spare her. but she herself so sighs to see her brother, that i am constrained to send a carriage to fetch him. they indeed loved one another greatly. may she survive to his coming! i do what i can, lest afterwards the sense of having neglected anything should torture me. desire him, therefore, without mentioning the cause, to return hither at once with all speed in this carriage; hither,--where she will either sleep in the lord or be restored. farewell in the lord." her brother came, but she was not restored. as she lay very ill, doctor martin said,-- "she is very dear to me; but, gracious god, if it is thy will to take her hence, i am content to know that she will be with thee." and as she lay in the bed, he said to her,-- "magdalenchen, my little daughter, thou wouldst like to stay with thy father; and thou art content also to go to thy father yonder." said she, "yes, dearest father; as god wills." then said the father,-- "thou darling child, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." then he turned away and said,-- "she is very dear to me. if the flesh is so strong, what will the spirit be?" and among other things he said,-- "for a thousand years god has given no bishop such great gifts as he has given me; and we should rejoice in his gifts. i am angry with myself that i cannot rejoice in my heart over her, nor give thanks; although now and then i can sing a little song to our god, and thank him a little for all this. but let us take courage; living or dying, we are the lord's. 'sive vivimus, sive moremur, domini sumus.' this is true, whether we take 'domini' in the nominative or the genitive: we are the lord's, and in him we are lords over death and life." then said master george rörer,-- "i once heard your reverence say a thing which often comforts me--namely, 'i have prayed our lord god that he will give me a happy departure when i journey hence. and he will do it; of that i feel sure. at my latter end i shall yet speak with christ my lord, were it for ever so brief a space.' i fear sometimes," continued master rörer, "that i shall depart hence suddenly, in silence, without being able to speak a word." then said dr. martin luther,-- "living or dying, we are the lord's. it is equally so whether you are killed by falling down stairs, or were sitting and writing, and suddenly should die. it would not injure me if i fell from a ladder and lay dead at its foot; for the devil hates us grievously, and might even bring about such a thing as that." when, at last, the little magdalen lay at the point of death, her father fell on his knees by her bed-side, wept bitterly and prayed that god would receive her. then she departed, and fell asleep in her father's arms. her mother was also in the room, but further off, on account of her grief. this happened a little after nine o'clock on the wednesday after the th sunday after trinity, . the doctor repeated often, as before said,-- "i would desire indeed to keep my daughter, if our lord god would leave her with me; for i love her very dearly. but his will be done; for nothing can be better than that for her." whilst she still lived, he said to her,-- "dear daughter, thou hast also a father in heaven: thou art going to him." then said master philip,-- "the love of parents is an image and illustration of the love of god, engraven on the human heart. if, then, the love of god to the human race is as great as that of parents to their children, it is indeed great and fervent." when she was laid in the coffin, doctor martin said,-- "thou darling lenichen, how well it is with thee!" and as he gazed on her lying there, he said,-- "ah, thou sweet lenichen, thou shalt rise again, and shine like a star; yes, like the sun!" they had made the coffin too narrow and too short, and he said,-- "the bed is too small for thee! i am indeed joyful in spirit, but after the flesh i am very sad, this parting is so beyond measure trying. wonderful it is that i should know she is certainly at peace, and that all is well with her, and yet should be so sad." and when the people who came to lay out the corpse, according to custom, spoke to the doctor, and said they were sorry for his affliction, he said,-- "you should rejoice. i have sent a saint to heaven; yes, a living saint! may we have such a death! such a death i would gladly die this very hour." then said one, "that is true indeed; yet every one would wish to keep his own." doctor martin answered,-- "flesh is flesh, and blood is blood. i am glad that she is yonder. there is no sorrow but that of the flesh." to others who came he said,-- "grieve not. i have sent a saint to heaven; yes, i have sent two such thither!" alluding to his infant elizabeth. as they were chanting by the corpse, "lord, remember not our former sins, which are of old," he said,-- "i say, o lord, not our former sins only, nor only those of old, but our present sins; for we are usurers, exactors, misers. yea, the abomination of the mass is still in the world!" when the coffin was closed, and she was buried, he said, "_there is indeed a resurrection of the body._" and as they returned from the funeral, he said,-- "my daughter is now provided for in body and soul. we christians have nothing to complain of; we know it must be so. we are more certain of eternal life than of anything else; for god who has promised it to us for his dear son's sake, can never lie. two saints of my flesh our lord god has taken, but not of my blood. flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom." among other things, he said,-- "we must take great care for our children, and especially for the poor little maidens; we must not leave it to others to care for them. i have no compassion on the boys. a lad can maintain himself wherever he is, if he will only work; and if he will not work, he is a scoundrel. but the poor maiden-kind must have a staff to lean on." and again,-- "i gave this daughter very willingly to our god. after the flesh, i would indeed have wished to keep her longer with me; but since he has taken her hence, i thank him." the night before magdalen luther died, her mother had a dream, in which she saw two men clothed in fair raiment, beautiful and young, come and lead her daughter away to her bridal. when, on the next morning, philip melancthon came into the cloister, and asked her how her daughter was, she told him her dream. but he was alarmed at it, and said to others,-- "those young men are the dear angels who will come and lead this maiden into the kingdom of heaven, to the true bridal." and the same day she died. some little time after her death, dr. martin luther said,-- "if my daughter magdalen could come to life again and bring with her to me the turkish kingdom, i would not have it. oh, she is well cared for; 'beati mortui qui in domino moriuntur.' who dies thus, certainly has eternal life. i would that i, and my children, and ye all could thus all depart; for evil days are coming. there is neither help nor counsel more on earth, i see, until the judgment day. i hope, if god will, it will not be long delayed; for covetousness and usury increase." and often at supper he repeated, "et multipicata sunt mala in terris." he himself made this epitaph, and had it placed on his magdalen's tomb:-- "dormio cum sanctis hic magdaleni lutheri filia, et hoc strato tecta quiesco meo, filia mortis eram peccati semine nata, sanguine sed vivo, christe, redempta tuo."[ ] [footnote : a friend has translated it thus:-- i, luther's daughter magdalen, here slumber with the blest; upon this bed i lay my head, and take my quiet rest. i was a child of death on earth, in sin my life was given; but on the tree christ died for me, and now i live in heaven.] in german,-- "here sleep i, lenichen, dr. luther's little daughter, rest with all the saints in my little bed; i who was born in sins, and must forever have been lost. but now i live and all is well with me, lord christ, redeemed with thy blood." yet indeed, although he tries to cheer others, he laments long and deeply himself, as many of his letters show. to jonas he wrote,-- "i think you will have heard that my dearest daughter magdalen is born again to the eternal kingdom of christ. but although i and my wife ought to do nothing but give thanks, rejoicing in so happy and blessed a departure, by which she has escaped the power of the flesh, the world, the turk, and the devil; yet such is the strength of natural affection, that we cannot part with her without sobs and groans of heart. they cleave to our heart, they remain fixed in its depths--her face, her words--the looks, living and dying, of that most dutiful and obedient child; so that even the death of christ (and what are all deaths in comparison with that?) scarcely can efface her death from our minds. do thou, therefore, give thanks to god in our stead. wonder at the great work of god who thus glorifies our flesh! she was, as thou knowest, gentle and sweet in disposition, and was altogether lovely. blessed be the lord jesus christ, who called and chose, and has thus magnified her! i wish for myself and all mine, that we may attain to such a death; yea, rather, to such a life, which only i ask from god, the father of all consolation and mercy." and again, to jacob probst, pastor at bremen-- "my most dear child, magdalen, has departed to her heavenly father, falling asleep full of faith in christ. an indignant horror against death softens my tears. i loved her vehemently. but in _that day_ we shall be avenged on death, and on him who is the author of death." and to amsdorf-- "thanks to thee for endeavouring to console me on the death of my dearest daughter. i loved her not only for that she was my flesh, but for her most placid and gentle spirit, ever so dutiful to me. but now i rejoice that she is gone to live with her heavenly father, and is fallen into sweetest sleep until that day. for the times are and will be worse and worse; and in my heart i pray that to thee, and to all dear to me, may be given such an hour of departure, and with such placid quiet, truly to fall asleep in the lord. '_the just are gathered, and rest in their beds._' 'for verily the world is as a horrible sodom.'" and to lauterbach-- "thou writest well, that in this most evil age death (or more truly, sleep) is to be desired by all. and although the departure of that most dear child has, indeed, no little moved me, yet i rejoice more that she, a daughter of the kingdom, is snatched from the jaws of the devil and the world; so sweetly did she fall asleep in christ." so mournfully and tenderly he writes and speaks, the shadow of that sorrow at the centre of his life overspreading the whole world with darkness to him. or rather, as he would say, the joy of that loving, dutiful child's presence being withdrawn, he looks out from his cold and darkened hearth, and sees the world as it is; the covetousness of the rich; the just demands, yet insurrectionary attempts of the poor; the war with the turks without, the strife in the empire within; the fierce animosities of impending religious war; the lukewarmness and divisions among his friends. for many years god gave that feeling heart a refuge from all these in the bright, unbroken circle of his home. but now the next look to him seems beyond this life; to death, which unveils the kingdom of truth and righteousness, and love, to each, one by one; or still more, to the glorious advent which will manifest it to all. of this he delights to speak. the end of the world, he feels sure, is near; and he says all preachers should tell their people to pray for its coming, as the beginning of the golden age. he said once--"o gracious god, come soon again! i am waiting ever for the day--the spring morning, when day and night are equal, and the clear, bright rose of that dawn shall appear. from that glow of morning i imagine a thick, black cloud will issue, forked with lightning, and then a crash, and heaven and earth will fall. praise be to god, who has taught us to long and look for that day. in the papacy, they sing-- 'dies iræ, dies illa;' but we look forward to it with hope; and i trust it is not far distant." yet he is no dreamer, listlessly clasping his hands in the night, and watching for the dawn. he is of the day, a child of the light; and calmly, and often cheerfully, he pursues his life of ceaseless toil for others, considerately attending to the wants and pleasures of all, from the least to the greatest; affectionately desirous to part with his silver plate, rather than not give a generous reward to a faithful old servant, who was retiring from his service; pleading the cause of the helpless; writing letters of consolation to the humblest who need his aid; caring for all the churches, yet steadily disciplining his children when they need it, or ready to enter into any scheme for their pleasure. wittemberg, . it seems as if dr. luther were as necessary to us now as when he gave the first impulse to better things, by affixing his theses to the doors of wittemberg, or when the eyes of the nation centred on him at worms. in his quiet home he sits and holds the threads which guide so many lives, and the destinies of so many lands. he has been often ailing lately, and sometimes very seriously. the selfish luxury of the rich burghers and nobles troubles him much. he almost forced his way one day into the elector's cabinet, to press on him the appropriation of some of the confiscated church revenues to the payment of pastors and schoolmasters; and earnestly, again and again, from the pulpit, does he denounce covetousness. "all other vices," he says, "bring their pleasures; but the wretched avaricious man is the slave of his goods, not their master; he enjoys neither this world nor the next. here he has purgatory, and there hell; while faith and content bring rest to the soul here, and afterwards bring the soul to heaven. for the avaricious lack what they have, as well as what they have not." never was a heart more free from selfish interests and aims than his. his faith is always seeing the invisible god; and to him it seems the most melancholy folly, as well as sin, that people should build their nests in this forest, on all whose trees he sees "the forester's mark of destruction." the tone of his preaching has often lately been reproachful and sad. elsè's gretchen, now a thoughtful maiden of three-and-twenty, said to me the other day,-- "aunt thekla, why does dr. luther preach some times as if his preaching had done no good? have not many of the evil things he attacked been removed? is not the bible in every home? our mother says we cannot be too thankful for living in these times, when we are taught the truth about god, and are given a religion of trust and love, instead of one of distrust and dread. why does dr. luther often speak as if nothing had been done?" and i could only say,-- "we see what has been done; but dr. luther only knows what he hoped to do. he said one day--'if i had known at first that men were so hostile to the word of god, i should have held my peace. i imagined that they sinned merely through ignorance.'" "i suppose, gretchen," i said, "that he had before him the vision of the whole of christendom flocking to adore and serve his lord, when once he had shown them how good he is. _we_ see what dr. luther has done. _he_ sees what he hoped, and contrasts it with what is left undone." xxxiv. the mother's story. i do not think there is another old man and woman in christendom who ought to be so thankful as my husband and i. no doubt all parents are inclined to look at the best side of their own children; but with ours there is really no other side to look at, it seems to me. perhaps elsè has sometimes a little too much of my anxious mind; but even in her tender heart, as in all the others, there is a large measure of her father's hopefulness. and then, although they have, perhaps, none of them quite his inventive genius, yet that seems hardly a matter of regret; because, as things go in the world, other people seem so often, at the very goal, to step in and reap the fruit of these inventions, just by adding some insignificant detail which makes the invention work, and gives them the appearance of having been the real discoverers. not that i mean to murmur for one instant against the people who have this little knack of just putting the finishing touch and making things succeed; that also, as the house-father says, is god's gift, and although it cannot certainly be compared to these great, lofty thoughts and plans of my husband's, it has more current value in the world. not, again, that i would for an instant murmur at the world. we have all so much more in it than we deserve (except, perhaps, my dearest husband, who cares so little for its rewards!) it has been quite wonderful how good every one has been to us. gottfried reichenbach, and all our sons-in-law, are like sons to us; and certainly could not have prized our daughters more if they had had the dowry of princesses! although i must candidly say i think our dear daughters without a kreutzer of dowry are worth a fortune to any man. i often wonder how it is they are such housewives, and so sensible and wise in every way, when i never considered myself at all a clever manager. to be sure their father's conversation was always very improving; and my dear blessed mother was a store-house of wisdom and experience. however, there is no accounting for these things. god is wonderfully good in blessing the humblest efforts to train up the little ones for him. we often think the poverty of their early years was quite a school of patience and household virtues for them all. even christopher and thekla, who caused us more anxiety at first than the others, are the very stay and joy of our old age; which shows how little we can foresee what good things god is preparing for us. how i used at one time to tremble for them both! it shocked elsè and me so grievously to see christopher, as we thought, quite turning his back on religion, after fritz became a monk; and what a relief it was to see him find in dr. luther's sermons and in the bible the truth which bowed his heart in reverence, yet left his character free to develop itself without being compressed into a mould made for other characters. what a relief it was to hear that he turned, not from religion, but from what was false in the religion then taught, and to see him devoting himself to his calling as a printer with a feeling as sacred as fritz to his work as a pastor! then our thekla, how anxious i was about her at one time! how eager to take her training out of god's hands into my own, which i thought, in my ignorance, might spare her fervent, enthusiastic, loving heart some pain. i wanted to tame down and moderate everything in her by tender warnings and wise precepts. i wanted her to love less vehemently, to rejoice with more limitation, to grieve more moderately. i tried hard to compress her character into a narrower mould. but god would not have it so. i can see it all now. she was to love and rejoice, and then to weep and lament, according to the full measure of her heart, that in the heights and depths to which god led her, she might learn what she was to learn of the heights and depths of the love which extends beyond all joy and below all sorrow. her character, instead of becoming dwarfed and stunted, as my ignorant hand might have made it, was to be thus braced, and strengthened, and rooted, that others might find shelter beneath her sympathy and love, as so many do now. i would have weakened in order to soften; god's providence has strengthened and expanded while softening, and made her strong to endure and pity as well as strong to feel. no one can say what she is to us, the one left entirely to us, to whom we are still the nearest and the dearest, who binds our years together by the unbroken memory of her tender care, and makes us young in her child-like love, and brings into our failing life the activity and interest of mature age by her own life of active benevolence. elsè and her household are the delight of our daily life; eva and fritz are our most precious and consecrated treasures, and all the rest are good and dear as children can be; but to all the rest we are the grandmother and the grandfather. to thekla we are "father" and "mother" still, the shelter of her life and the home of her affections. only, sometimes my old anxious fears creep over me when i think what she will do when we are gone. but i have no excuse for these now, with all those promises of our lord, and his words about the lilies and the birds, in plain german in my bible, and the very same lilies and birds preaching to me in colours and songs as plain from the eaves and from the garden outside my window. never did any woman owe so much to dr. luther and the reformation as i. christopher's religion; fritz and eva's marriage; thekla's presence in our home, instead of her being a nun in some convent-prison; all the love of the last months my dear sister agnes and i spent together before her peaceful death; and the great weight of fear removed from my own heart! and yet my timid, ease-loving nature, will sometimes shrink, not so much from what has been done, as from the way in which it has been done. i fancy a little more gentleness might have prevented so terrible a breach between the new and the old religions; that the peasant war might have been saved; and somehow or other (how, i cannot at all tell) the good people on both sides might have been kept at one. for that there are good people on both sides, nothing will ever make me doubt. indeed, is not one of our sons--our good and sober-minded pollux--still in the old church? and can i doubt that he and his devout, affectionate little wife, who visits the poor and nurses the sick, love god and try to serve him? in truth, i cannot help half counting it among our mercies that we have one son still adhering to the old religion; although my children, who are wiser than i, do not think so; nor my husband, who is wiser than they; nor dr. luther, who is, on the whole, i believe, wiser than any one. perhaps i should rather say, that great as the grief is to us and the loss to him, i cannot help seeing some good in our pollux remaining as a link between us and the religion of our fathers. it seems to remind us of the tie of our common creation and redemption, and our common faith, however dim, in our creator and redeemer. it prevents our thinking all christendom which belongs to the old religion quite the same as the pagans or the turks; and it also helps a little to prevent their thinking us such hopeless infidels. besides, although they would not admit it, i feel sure that dr. luther and the reformation have taught pollux and his wife many things. they also have a german bible; and although it is much more cumbrous than dr. luther's, and, it seems to me, not half such genuine, hearty german, still he and his wife can read it; and i sometimes trust we shall find by-and-by we did not really differ so very much about our saviour, although we may have differed about dr. luther. perhaps i am wrong, however, in thinking that great changes might have been more quietly accomplished. thekla says the spring must have its thunder-storms as well as its sunshine and gentle showers, and that the stone could not be rolled away from the sepulchre, nor the veil rent in the holy place without an earthquake. elsè's gottfried says the devil would never suffer his lies about the good and gracious god to be set aside without a battle; and that the dear holy angels have mighty wars to wage, as well as silent watch to keep by the cradles of the little ones. only i cannot help wishing that the reformers, and even dr. luther himself, would follow the example of the archangel michael in not returning railing for railing. of one thing, however, i am quite sure, whatever any one may say; and that is that it is among our great mercies that our atlantis married a swiss, so that through her we have a link with our brethren the evangelical christians who follow the zwinglian confession. i shall always be thankful for the months her father and i passed under their roof. if dr. luther could only know how they revere him for his noble work, and how one they are with us and him in faith in christ and christian love! i was a little perplexed at one time how it could be that such good men should separate, until thekla reminded me of that evil one who goes about accusing god to us, and us to one another. on the other hand, some of the zwinglians are severe on dr. luther for his "compromise with rome," and his "unscriptural doctrines," as some of them call his teaching about the sacraments. these are things on which my head is not clear enough to reason. it is always so much more natural to me to look out for points of agreement than of difference; and it does seem to me, that deep below all the differences good men often mean the same. dr. luther looks on holy baptism in contrast with the monastic vows, and asserts the common glory of the baptism and christian profession which all christians share, against the exclusive claims of any section of priests or monks. and in the holy supper, it seems to me simply the certainty of the blessing, and the reality of the presence of our saviour in the sacrament, that he is really vindicating, in his stand on the words, "this is my body." baptism represents to him the consecration and priesthood of all christians, to be defended against all narrow privileges of particular orders; the holy supper, the assured presence of christ, to be defended against all doubters. to the swiss, on the other hand, the contrast is between faith and form, letter and spirit. this is, at all events, what my husband thinks. i wish dr. luther would spend a few months with our atlantis and her conrad. i shall always be thankful _we_ did. lately, the tone of dr. luther's preaching has often been reproachful and full of warning. these divisions between the evangelical christians distress him so much. yet he himself, with that resolute will of his, keeps them apart, as he would keep his children from poison, saying severe and bitter things of the zwinglians, which sometimes grieve me much, because i know conrad winkelried's parish and atlantis' home. well, one thing is certain: if dr. luther had been like me, we should have had no reformation at all. and dr. luther and the reformation have brought peace to my heart and joy to my life, for which i would go through any storms. only, to leave our dear ones behind in the storms is another thing! but our dear heavenly father has not, indeed, called us to leave them yet. when he does call us, he will give us the strength for that. and then we shall see everything quite clearly, because we shall see our saviour quite clearly, as he is, know his love, and love him quite perfectly. what that will be we know not yet! but i am quite persuaded that when we do really see our blessed lord face to face, and see all things in his light, we shall all be very much surprised, and find we have something to unlearn, as well as infinitely much to learn; not pollux, and the zwinglians, and i only, but dr. philip melancthon, and dr. luther, and all! for the reformation, and even dr. luther's german bible, have not taken all the clouds away. still, we see through a glass darkly. but they have taught us that there is nothing evil and dark behind to be found out; only, much to be revealed which is too good for us yet to understand, and too bright for us yet to see. xxxv. eva's agnes's story. eisleben, . aunt elsè says no one in the world ought to present more thanksgivings to god than heinz and i, and i am sure she is right. in the first place we have the best father and mother in the world, so that whenever from our earliest years they have spoken to us about our father in heaven, we have had just to think of what they were on earth to us, and feel that all their love and goodness together are what god is; only (if we can conceive such a thing) much more. we have only had to _add_ to what they are, to learn what god is, not to take anything away; to say to ourselves, as we think of our parents, so kind in judging others, so loving, so true, god is like that--only the love is greater and wiser than our father's, tenderer and more sympathizing than our mother's (difficult as it is to imagine). and then there is just one thing in which he is unlike. his power is unbounded. he can give to us every blessing he sees it good to give. with such a father and mother on earth, and such a father in heaven, and with heinz, how can i ever thank our god enough? and our mother is so young still! our dear father said the other day, "her hair has not a tinge of grey in it, but is as golden as our agnes's." and her face is so fair and sweet, and her voice so clear and full in her own dear hymns, or in talking! aunt elsè says, it makes one feel at rest to look at her, and that her voice always was the sweetest in the world, something between church music and the cooing of a dove. aunt elsè says also, that even as a child she had just the same way she has now of seeing what you are thinking about--of _coming into_ your heart, and making everything that is good in it feel it is understood, and all that is bad in it feel detected and slink away. our dear father does not, indeed, look so young; but i like men to look as if they had been in the wars--as if their hearts had been well ploughed and sown. and the grey in his hair, and the furrows on his forehead--those two upright ones when he is thinking--and the firm compression of his mouth, and the hollow on his cheek, seem to me quite as beautiful in their way as our mother's placid brow, and the dear look on her lips, like the dawn of a smile, as if the law of kindness had moulded every curve. then, in the second place (perhaps i ought to have said in the first,) we have the "catechism." and aunt elsè says we have no idea, heinz and i, what a blessing that is to us. we certainly did not always think it a blessing when we were learning it. but i begin to understand it now, especially since i have been staying at wittemberg with aunt elsè, and she has told me about the perplexities of her childhood and early youth. always to have learned about god as the father who "cares for us every day"--gives us richly all things to enjoy, and "that all out of pure, fatherly, divine love and goodness; and of the lord jesus christ, that he has redeemed me from all sin, from death, and from the power of the devil, to be his own--redeemed me, not with gold and silver, but with his holy, precious blood;" and of the holy spirit, that "he dwells with us daily, calls us by his gospel, enlightens, and richly forgives;"--all this, she says, is the greatest blessing any one can know. to have no dark, suspicious thoughts of the good god, unconsciously drunk in from infancy, to dash away from our hearts--dr. luther himself says we have little idea what a gift that is to us young people of this generation. it used to be like listening to histories of dark days centuries ago, to hear aunt elsè speak of her childhood at eisenach, when dr. luther also was a boy, and used to sing for bread at our good kinswoman ursula cotta's door--when the monks and nuns from the many high-walled convents used to walk demurely in their dark robes about the streets; and aunt elsè used to tremble at the thought of heaven, because it might be like a convent garden, and all the heavenly saints like aunt agnes. our dear great-aunt agnes, how impossible for us to understand her being thus dreaded!--she who was the playmate of our childhood; and used to spoil us, our mother said, by doing everything we asked, and making us think she enjoyed being pulled about, and made a lion or a turk of, as much as we enjoyed it. how well i remember now the pang that came over heinz and me when we were told to speak and step softly, because she was ill, and then taken for a few minutes in the day to sit quite still by her bed-side with picture-books, because she loved to look at us, but could not bear any noise. and at last the day when we were led in solemnly, and she could look at us no more, but lay quite still and white, while we placed our flowers on the bed, and we both felt it too sacred and too much like being at church to cry--until our evening prayer-time came, and our mother told us that aunt agnes did not need our prayers any longer, because god had made her quite good and happy in heaven. and heinz said he wished god would take us all, and make us quite good and happy with her. but i, when we were left in our cribs alone, sobbed bitterly, and could not sleep. it seemed so terrible to think aunt agnes did not want us any more, and that we could do nothing more for her--she who had been so tenderly good to us! i was so afraid, also, that we had not been kind enough to her, had teased her to play with us, and made more noise than we ought; and that that was the reason god had taken her away. heinz could not understand that at all. he was quite sure god was too kind; and, although he also cried, he soon fell asleep. it was a great relief to me when our mother came round, as she always did the last thing to see if we were asleep, and i could sob out my troubles on her heart, and say-- "will aunt agnes never want us any more?" "yes, darling," said our mother; "she wants us now. she is waiting for us all to come to her." "then it was not because we teased her, and were noisy, she was taken away? we did love her so very dearly! and can we do nothing for her now?" then she told me how aunt agnes had suffered much here, and that our heavenly father had taken her _home_, and that, although we could not do anything for her now, we need not leave her name out of our nightly prayers, because we could always say, "thank god for taking dear aunt agnes home!" and so two things were written on my heart that night, that there was a place like home beyond the sky, where aunt agnes was waiting for us, loving us quite as much as ever, with god who loved us more than any one; and that we must be as kind as possible to people, and not give any one a moment's pain, because a time may come when they will not need our kindness any more. it is very difficult for me who always think of aunt agnes waiting for us in heaven, with the wistful loving look she used to have when she lay watching for heinz and me to come and sit by her bed-side, to imagine what different thoughts aunt elsè had about her when she was a nun. but aunt elsè says that she has no doubt that heinz and i, with our teasing, and our noise, and our love, were among the chief instruments of her sanctification. yes, those days of aunt elsè's childhood appear almost as far away from us as the days of st. elizabeth of hungary, who lived at the wartburg, used to seem from aunt elsè. it is wonderful to think what that miner's son, whom old john reineck remembers carrying on his shoulders to the school-house up the hill, here at eisleben, has done for us all. so completely that grim old time seems to have passed away. there is not a monastery left in all saxony, and the pastors are all married, and schools are established in every town, where dr. luther says the young lads and maidens hear more about god and christianity than the nuns and monks in all the convents had learned thirty years ago. not that all the boys and maidens are good as they ought to be. no; that is too plain from what heinz and i feel and know, and also from what our dear father preaches in the pulpit on sundays. our mother says sometimes she is afraid we of this generation shall grow up weak, and self-indulgent, and ease-loving, unlike our fathers who had to fight for every inch of truth they hold, with the world, the flesh, and the devil. but our dear father smiles gravely, and says, she need not fear. these three enemies are not slain yet and will give the young generation enough to do. besides, the pope is still reigning at rome, and the emperor is even now threatening us with an army, to say nothing of the turks, and the anabaptists, of whom dr. luther says so much. i knew very little of the world until two years ago, and not much, i am afraid, of myself. but when i was about fifteen i went alone to stay with aunt chriemnild and aunt elsè, and then i learned many things which in learning troubled me not a little, but now that they are learned make me happier than before, which our mother says is the way with most of god's lessons. before these visits i had never left home; and although heinz, who had been away, and was also naturally more thrown with other people as a boy than i was, often told me i knew no more of actual life than a baby, i never understood what he meant. i suppose i had always unconsciously thought our father and mother were the centre of the world to every one as well as to us; and had just been thankful for my lot in life, because i believed in all respects no one else had anything so good; and entertained a quiet conviction that in their hearts every one thought the same. and to find that to other people our lot in life seemed pitiable and poor, was an immense surprise to me, and no little grief! when we left our old home in the forest many years since, when heinz and i were quite children; and it only lingered in our memories as a kind of eden or fairy-land, where, amongst wild flowers, and green glades, and singing birds, and streams, we made a home for all our dreams, not questioning, however, in our hearts that our new home at eisleben was quite as excellent in its way. have we not a garden behind the house with several apple-trees, and a pond as large as any of our neighbours, and an empty loft for wet days--the perfection of a loft--for telling fairy tales in, or making experiments, or preparing surprises of wonderful cabinet work with heinz's tools? and has not our eisleben valley also its green and wooded hills, and in the forests around are there not strange glows all night from the great miners' furnaces to which those of the charcoal-burners in the thuringian forest are mere toys? and are there not, moreover, all kinds of wild caverns and pits from which, at intervals, the miners come forth, grimy and independent, and sing their wild songs in chorus as they come home from work? and is not eisleben dr. luther's birth-place? and have we not a high grammar-school which dr. luther founded, and in which our dear father teaches latin? and do we not hear him preach once every sunday? to me it always seemed, and seems still, that nothing can be nobler than our dear father's office of telling the people the way to heaven on sundays, and teaching their children the way to be wise and good on earth in the week. it was a great shock to me when i found every one did not think the same. not that every one was not always most kind to me; but it happened in this way. one day some visitors had been at uncle ulrich's castle. they had complimented me on my golden hair, which heinz always says is the colour of the princess' in the fairy tale. i went out at aunt chriemhild's desire, feeling half shy and half flattered, to play with my cousins in the forest. as i was sitting hidden among the trees, twining wreaths from the forget-me-nots my cousins were gathering by the stream below, these ladies passed again. i heard one of them say,-- "yes, she is a well-mannered little thing for a schoolmaster's daughter." "i cannot think whence a burgher maiden--the cottas are all burghers, are they not--should inherit those little white hands and those delicate features," said the other. "poor, too, doubtless, as they must be!" was the reply, "one would think she had never had to work about the house, as no doubt she must." "who was her grandfather?" "only a printer at wittemberg!" "only a schoolmaster!" and "only a printer!" my whole heart rose against the scornful words. was this what people meant by paying compliments? was this the estimate my father was held in in the world--he, the noblest man in it, who was fit to be the elector or the emperor? a bitter feeling came over me, which i thought was affection and an aggrieved sense of justice. but love is scarcely so bitter, or justice so fiery. i did not tell any one, nor did i shed a tear, but went on weaving my forget-me-not wreaths, and forswore the wicked and hollow world. had i not promised to do so long since, through my godsponsers, at my baptism? now, i thought, i was learning what all that meant. at aunt elsè's, however, another experience awaited me. there was to be a fair, and we were all to go in our best holiday dresses. my cousins had rich oriental jewels on their bodices; and although, as burgher maidens, they might not, like my cousins at the castle, wear velvets, they had jackets and dresses of the stiffest, richest silks, which uncle reichenbach had sent for from italy and the east. my stuff dress certainly looked plain beside them, but i did not care in the least for that; my own dear mother and i had made it together; and she had hunted up some old precious stores to make me a taffetas jacket, which, as it was the most magnificent apparel i had ever possessed, we had both looked at with much complacency. nor did it seem to me in the least less beautiful now. the touch of my mother's fingers had been on it, as she smoothed it round me the evening before i came away. and aunt elsè had said it was exactly like my mother. but my cousins were not quite pleased, it was evident; especially fritz and the elder boys. they said nothing; but on the morning of the fête, a beautiful new dress, the counterpart of my cousins', was laid at my bed-side before i awoke. i put it on with some pleasure, but, when i looked at myself in the glass--it was very unreasonable--i could not bear it. it seemed a reproach on my mother, and on my humble life and my dear, poor home at eisleben, and i sat down and cried bitterly, until a gentle knock at the door aroused me; and aunt elsè came in, and found me sitting with tears on my face and on the beautiful new dress, exceedingly ashamed of myself. "don't you like it, my child? it was our fritz's thought. i was afraid you might not be pleased." "my mother thought the old one good enough," i said in a very faltering tone. "it was good enough for my home. i had better go home again." aunt elsè was carefully wiping away the tears from my dress, but at these words she began to cry herself, and drew me to her heart, and said it was exactly what she should have felt in her young days at eisenach, but that i must just wear the new dress to the fête, and then i need never wear it again unless i liked; and that i was right in thinking nothing half so good as my mother, and all she did, because nothing ever was, or would be, she was sure. so we cried together, and were comforted; and i wore the green taffetas to the fair. but when i came home again to eisleben, i felt more ashamed of myself than of the taffetas dress or of the flattering ladies at the castle. the dear, precious old home, in spite of all i could persuade myself to the contrary, did look small and poor, and the furniture worn and old. and yet i could see there new traces of care and welcome everywhere--fresh rushes on the floors; a new white quilt on my little bed, made, i knew, by my mother's hands. she knew very soon that i was feeling troubled about something, and soon she knew it all, as i told her my bitter experiences of life. "your father, 'only a schoolmaster!'" she said, "and you yourself presented with a new taffetas dress! are these all your grievances, little agnes?" "_all_, mother!" i exclaimed; "and _only_!" "is your father anything else than a schoolmaster, agnes?" she said. "i am not ashamed of that for an instant, mother," i said; "you could not think it. i think it is much nobler to teach children than to hunt foxes, and buy and sell bales of silk and wool. but the world seems to me exceedingly hollow and crooked; and i never wish to see any more of it. oh, mother, do you think it was all nonsense in me?" "i think, my child, you have had an encounter with the world, the flesh, and the devil; and i think they are no contemptible enemies. and i think you have not left them behind." "but is not our father's calling nobler than any one's, and our home the nicest in the world?" i said; "and eisleben really as beautiful in its way as the thuringian forest, and as wise as wittemberg?" "all callings may be noble," she said; "and the one god calls us to is the noblest for us. eisleben is not, i think, as beautiful as the old forest-covered hills at gersdorf; nor luther's birth-place as great as his dwelling-place, where he preaches and teaches, and sheds around him the influence of his holy daily life. other homes may be as good as yours, dear child, though none can be so to you." and so i learned that what makes any calling noble is its being commanded by god, and what makes anything good is its being given by god; and that contentment consists not in persuading ourselves that our things are the very best in the world, but in believing they are the best for us, and giving god thanks for them. that was the way i began to learn to know the world. and also in that way i began better to understand the catechism, especially the part about the lord's prayer, and that on the second article of the creed, where we learn of him who suffered for our sins and redeemed us with his holy precious blood. i have just returned from my second visit to wittemberg, which was much happier than my first--indeed, exceedingly happy. the great delight of my visit, however, has been seeing and hearing dr. luther. his little daughter, magdalen, three years younger than i am, had died not long before, but that seemed only to make dr. luther kinder than ever to all young maidens--"the poor maiden-kind," as he calls them. his sermons seemed to me like a father talking to his children; and aunt elsè says he repeats the catechism often himself "to god" to cheer his heart and strengthen himself--the great dr. martin luther! i had heard so much of him, and always thought of him as the man nearest god on earth, great with a majesty surpassing infinitely that of the elector or the emperor. and now it was a great delight to see him in his home, in the dark wainscoted room looking on his garden, and to see him raise his head from his writing and smile kindly at us as he sat at the great table in the broad window, with mistress luther sewing on a lower seat beside him, and little margaretha luther, the youngest child, quietly playing beside them, contented with a look now and than from her father. i should like to have seen magdalen luther. she must have been such a good and loving child. but that will be hereafter in heaven! i suppose my feeling for dr. luther is different from that of my mother and father. they knew him during the conflict. we only know him as the conqueror, with the palm, as it were, already in his hand. but my great friend at wittemberg is aunt thekla. i think, on the whole, there is no one i should more wish to be like. she understands one in that strange way, without telling, like my mother. i think it is because she has felt so much. aunt elsè told me of the terrible sorrow she had when she was young. our dear mother and father also had their great sorrows, although they came to the end of their sorrow in this life, and aunt thekla will only come to the end of hers in the other world. but it seems to have consecrated them all, i think, in some peculiar way. they all, and dr. luther also, make me think of the people who, they say, have the gift, by striking on the ground, of discovering where the hidden springs lie that others may know where to dig for the wells. can sorrow only confer this gift of knowing where to find the hidden springs in the heart? if so, it must be worth while to suffer. only there are just one or two sorrows which it seems almost impossible to bear! but, as our mother says, our saviour has all the gifts in his hands; and "the greatest gift" of all (in whose hands the roughest tools can do the finest work) "is _love_!" and that is just the gift every one of us may have without limit. xxxvi. thekla's story. wittemberg, d _january_, . dr. luther has left wittemberg to-day for eisleben, his birth-place, to settle a dispute between the counts of mansfeld concerning certain rights of church patronage. he left in good spirits, intending to return in a few days. his three sons, john, martin, and paul, went with him. mistress luther is anxious and depressed about his departure, but we trust without especial cause, although he has often of late been weak and suffering. the dullness and silence which to me always seem to settle down on wittemberg in his absence are increased now doubtless by this wintry weather, and the rains and storms which have been swelling the rivers to floods. he is, indeed, the true father and king of our little world; and when he is with us all germany and the world seem nearer us through his wide-seeing mind and his heart that thrills to every touch of want or sorrow throughout the world. _february_. mistress luther has told me to-day that dr. luther said before he left he could "lie down on his death-bed with joy if he could first see his dear lords of mansfeld reconciled." she says also that he has just concluded the commentary on genesis, on which he has been working these ten years, with these words-- "_i am weak and can do no more. pray god he may grant me a peaceful and happy death._" she thinks his mind has been dwelling of late more than usual, even with him, on death, and fears he feels some inward premonition or presentiment of a speedy departure. so long he has spoken of death as a thing to be desired! yet it always makes our hearts ache to hear him do so. of the advent, as the end of all evil and the beginning of the kingdom, we can well bear to hear him speak, but not of that which if the end of all evil to him, would seem like the beginning of all sorrows to us. now, however, mistress luther is somewhat comforted by his letters, which are more cheerful than those she received during his absence last year, when he counselled her to sell all their wittemberg property, and take refuge in her estate at zöllsdorf, that he might know her safe out of wittemberg--that "haunt of selfishness and luxury"--before he died. his first letter since leaving wittemberg this time is addressed-- "to my kind and dear käthe lutherin, at wittemberg, grace and peace in the lord. "dear käthe,--to-day at half-past eight o'clock we reached halle, but have not yet arrived at eisleben; for a great anabaptist encountered us with water-floods and great blocks of ice, which covered the land, and threatened to baptize us all again. neither could we return, on account of the mulda. therefore we remain tranquilly here at halle, between the two streams. not that we thirst for water to drink, but console ourselves with good torgau beer and rhine wine, in case the saala should break out into a rage again. for we and our servants, and the ferrymen, would not tempt god by venturing on the water; for the devil is furious against us, and dwells in the water-floods; and it is better to escape him than to complain of him, nor is it necessary that we should become the jest of the pope and his hosts. i could not have believed that the saala could have made such a brewing, bursting over the causeway and all. now no more; but pray for us and be pious. i hold, hadst thou been here, thou hadst counselled us to do precisely what we have done. so for once we should have taken thy advice. herewith i commend you to god. amen. at halle, on the day of the conversion of st. paul. "martinus luther." four other letters she has received, one dated on the d of february, addressed-- "to my heartily beloved consort katherin lutherin, the zöllsdorfian doctoress, proprietress of the saümarkt, and whatever else she may be, grace and peace in christ; and my old poor (and, as know, powerless) love to thee! "dear käthe,--i became very weak on the road to eisleben, for my sins; although, wert thou here, thou wouldst have said it was for the sins of the jews. for near eisleben we passed through a village where many jews reside, and it is true, as i came through it, a cold wind came through my baret (doctor's hat), and my head, as if it would turn my brain to ice. "thy sons left mansfeld yesterday, because hans von jene so humbly entreated them to accompany him. i know not what they do. if it were cold, they might help me freeze here. since, however, it is warm again, they may do or suffer anything else they like. herewith i commend you and all the house to god, and greet all our friends. vigilia purificationis." and again-- eisleben. "to the deeply learned lady katherin, my gracious consort at wittemberg, grace and peace. "dear käthe,--we sit here and suffer ourselves to be tortured, and would gladly be away; but that cannot be, i think, for a week. thou mayest say to master philip that he may correct his exposition; for he has not yet rightly understood why the lord called riches thorns. here is the school in which to learn that" (_i. e._, the mansfeld controversies about property). "but it dawns on me that in the holy scriptures thorns are always menaced with fire; therefore i have all the more patience, hoping, with god's help, to bring some good out of it all. it seems to me the devil laughs at us; but god laughs him to scorn! amen. pray for us. the messenger hastes. on st. dorothea's day. m. l. (thy old lover)." dr. luther seems to be enjoying himself in his own simple hearty way, at his old home. nobles and burghers give him the most friendly welcome. the third letter mistress luther has received is full of playful tender answers to her anxieties about him. "to my dear consort katherin lutherin, doctoress and selftormentor at wittemberg, my gracious lady, grace and peace in the lord. "read thou, dear käthe, the gospel of john, and the smaller catechism, and then thou wilt say at once, 'all that in the book is said of me.' for thou must needs take the cares of thy god upon thee, as if he were not almighty, and could not create ten doctor martins, if the one old doctor martin were drowned in the saala. leave me in peace with thy cares i have a better guardian than thou and all the angels. it is he who lay in the manger, and was fondled on a maiden's breast; but who sitteth also now on the right hand of god the almighty father. therefore be at peace." and again-- "to the saintly anxious lady, katherin lutherin, doctorin zulsdorferin at wittemberg, my gracious dear wife, grace and peace in christ. "most saintly lady doctoress,--we thank your ladyship kindly for your great anxiety and care for us which prevented your sleeping; for since the time that you had this care for us, a fire nearly consumed us in our inn, close by my chamber door; and yesterday (doubtless by the power of your care), a stone almost fell on our head, and crushed us as in a mouse-trap. for in our private chamber during more than two days, lime and mortar crashed above us, until we sent for work-men, who only touched the stone with two fingers, when it fell, as large as a large pillow two hand-breadths wide. for all this we should have to thank your anxiety; had not the dear holy angels been guarding us also! i begin to be anxious that if your anxieties do not cease, at last the earth may swallow us up, and all the elements pursue us. dost thou indeed teach the catechism and the creed? do thou then pray and leave god to care, as it is promised. 'cast they burden on the lord, and he shall sustain thee.' "we would now gladly be free and journey homewards, if god willed it so. amen. amen. amen. on scholastica's day. the willing servant of your holiness, "martin luther." _february_ th. good news for us all at wittemberg! mistress luther has received a letter from the doctor, dated the th february, announcing his speedy return:-- "to my kind dear wife katharin lutherin von bora, at wittemberg. "grace and peace in the lord, dear käthe! we hope this week to come home again, if god will. god has shown us great grace; for the lords have arranged all through their referees, except two or three articles--one of which is that count gebhard and count albrecht should again become brothers, which i undertake to-day, and will invite them to be my guests, that they may speak to each other, for hitherto they have been dumb, and have embittered one another with severe letters. "the young men are all in the best spirits, make excursions with fools' bells on sledges--the young ladies also--and amuse themselves together; and among them also count gebhard's son. so we must understand god is _exauditor precum_. "i send to thee some game which the countess albrecht has presented to me. she rejoices with all her heart at the peace. thy sons are still at mansfeld. jacob luther will take good care of them. we have food and drink here like noblemen, and we are waited on well--too well, indeed--so that we might forget you at wittemberg. i have no ailments. "this thou canst show to master philip, to doctor pomer, and to doctor creuzer. the report has reached this place that doctor martin has been snatched away (_i. e._, by the devil), as they say at magdeburg and at leipzig. such fictions these countrymen compose, who see as far as their noses. some say the emperor is thirty miles from this, at soest, in westphalia; some that the frenchman is captive, and also the landgrave. but let _us_ sing and say, we will wait what god the lord will do.--eisleben, on the sunday valentini. m. luther, d." so the work of peace-making is done, and dr. luther is to return to us this week--long, we trust, to enjoy among us the peace-maker's beatitude. xxxvii. fritz's story. eisleben, . it has been quite a festival day at eisleben. the child who, sixty-three years since, was born here to john luther, the miner, returns to-day the greatest man in the empire, to arbitrate in a family dispute of the counts of mansfeld. as eva and i watched him enter the town to-day from the door of our humble happy home, she said,-- "he that is greatest among you shall be as he that doth serve." these ten last years of service have, however, aged him much! i could not conceal from myself that they had. there are traces of suffering on the expressive face, and there is a touch of feebleness in the form and step. "how is it," i said to eva, "that elsè or thekla did not tell us of this? he is certainly much feebler." "they are always with him," she said, "and we never see what time is doing, love; but only what he has done." her words made me thoughtful. could it be that such changes were passing on us also, and that we were failing to observe them? when dr. luther and the throng had passed, we returned into the house, and eva resumed her knitting, while i recommenced the study of my sermon; but secretly i raised my eyes from my books and surveyed her. if time had indeed thus been changing that beloved form, it was better i should know it, to treasure more the precious days he was so treacherously stealing. yet scarcely, with the severest scrutiny, could i detect the trace of age or suffering on her face or form. the calm brow was as white and calm as ever. the golden hair, smoothly braided under her white matronly cap, was as free from grey as even our agnes', who was flitting in and out of the winter sunshine, busy with household work in the next room. there was a roundness on the cheek, although, perhaps, its curve was a little changed; and when she looked up, and met my eyes, was there not the very same happy, child-like smile as ever, that seemed to overflow from a world of sunshine within? "no!" i said; "eva, thank god, i have not deluded myself! time has not stolen a march on you yet." "think how i have been shielded, fritz," she said. "what a sunny and sheltered life mine has been, never encountering any storm except under the shelter of such a home and such a love. but dr. luther has been so long the one foremost and highest, on whose breast the first force of every storm has burst." just then our heinz came in. "your father is trying to prove i am not growing old," she said. "who said such a thing of our mother?" asked heinz, turning fiercely to agnes. "no one," i said; "but it startled me to see the change in dr. luther, and i began to fear what changes might have been going on unobserved in our own home." "is dr. luther much changed?" said heinz. "i think i never saw a nobler face, so resolute and true, and with such a keen glance in his dark eyes. he might have been one of the emperor's greatest generals--he looks so like a veteran." "is he not a veteran, heinz?" said eva. "has he not fought all our battles for us for years? what did you think of him, agnes?" "i remember best the look he gave my father and you," she said. "his face looked so full of kindness; i thought how happy he must make his home." that evening was naturally a time, with eva and me, for going over the past. and how much of it is linked with dr. luther! that our dear home exists at all is, through god, his work. and more even than that: the freedom and peace of our hearts came to us chiefly at first through him. all the past came back to me when i saw his face again; as if suddenly flashed on me from a mirror. the days when he sang before aunt ursula cotta's door at eisenach--when the voice which has since stirred all christendom to its depths sang carols for a piece of bread. then the gradual passing away of the outward trials of poverty, through his father's prosperity and liberality--the brilliant prospects opening before him at the university--his sudden, yet deliberate closing of all those earthly schemes--the descent into the dark and bitter waters, where he fought the fight for his age, and, all but sinking, found the hand that saved him, and came to the shore again on the right side; and not alone, but upheld evermore by the hand that rescued him, and which he has made known to the hearts of thousands. then i seemed to see him stand before the emperor at worms, in that day when men did not know whether to wonder most at his gentleness or his daring--in that hour which men thought was his hour of conflict, but which was in truth his hour of triumph, after the real battle had been fought and the real victory won. and now twenty years more had passed away; the bible has been translated by him into german, and is speaking in countless homes; homes hallowed (and, in many instances, created) by his teaching. "what then," said eva, "has been gained by his teaching and his work?" "the yoke of tradition, and of the papacy, is broken," i said. "the gospel is preached in england, and, with more or less result, throughout germany. in denmark, an evangelical pastor has consecrated king christian iii. in the low countries, and elsewhere, men and women have been martyred, as in the primitive ages, for the faith. in france and in switzerland evangelical truth has been embraced by tens of thousands, although not in dr. luther's form, nor only from his lips." "these are great results," she replied; "but they are external--at least, we can only see the outside of them. what fruit is there in this little world, around us at eisleben, of whose heart we know something?" "the golden age is, indeed, not come," i said, "or the counts of mansfeld would not be quarrelling about church patronage, and needing dr. luther as a peace-maker. nor would dr. luther need so continually to warn the rich against avarice, and to denounce the selfishness which spent thousands of florins to buy exemption from future punishment, but grudges a few kreuzers to spread the glad tidings of the grace of god. if covetousness is idolatry, it is too plain that the reformation has, with many, only changed the idol." "yet," replied eva, "it is certainly something to have the idol removed from the church to the market, to have it called by a despised instead of by a hallowed name, and disguised in any rather than in sacred vestments." thus we came to the conclusion that the reformation had done for us what sunrise does. it had wakened life, and ripened real fruits of heaven in many places, and it had revealed evil and noisome things in their true forms. the world, the flesh and the devil remain unchanged; but it is much to have learned that the world is not a certain definite region outside the cloister, but an atmosphere to be guarded against as around us everywhere; that the flesh is not the love of kindred or of nature, but of _self in these_, and that the devil's most fiery dart is distrust of god. for us personally, and ours, how infinitely much dr. luther has done; and if for us and ours, how much for countless other hearts and homes unknown to us! _monday_, _february_ , . dr. luther administered the communion yesterday, and preached. it has been a great help to have him going in and out among us. four times he has preached; it seems to us, with as much point and fervour as ever. to-day, however, there was a deep solemnity about his words. his text was in matt. xi., "fear not, therefore; for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, and hid that shall not be known. what i tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light; and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye on the house-tops. and fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your father. but the very hairs of your head are all numbered." he must have felt feebler than he seemed, for he closed with the words-- "this, and much more, may be said from the passage; but i am too weak, and _here we will close_." eva seemed very grave all the rest of the day; and when i returned from the school on this morning, she met me with an anxious face at the door, and said-- "is the doctor better?" "i have not heard that he is ill," i said. "he was engaged with the arbitration again to-day." "i cannot get those words of his out of my head," she said; "they haunt me--'_here we will close_.' i cannot help thinking what it would be never to hear that faithful voice again." "you are depressed, my love," i said, "at the thought of dr. luther's leaving us this week. but by-and-by we will stay some little time at wittemberg, and hear him again there." "if god will!" she said gravely. "what god has given us, through him, can never be taken away." i have inquired again about him, however, frequently to-day, but there seems no cause for anxiety. he retired from the great hall where the conferences and the meals take place, at eight o'clock; and this evening, as often before during his visit, dr. jonas overheard him praying aloud at the window of his chamber. _thursday, th february_. the worst--the very worst--has come to pass! the faithful voice is, indeed, silenced to us on earth for ever. here where the life began it has closed. he who, sixty-three years ago, lay here a little helpless babe, lies here again a lifeless corpse. yet it is not with sixty-three years ago, but with three days since that we feel the bitter contrast. three days ago he was among us the counsellor, the teacher, the messenger of god, and now that heart, so open, so tender to sympathize with sorrows, and so strong to bear a nation's burden, has ceased to beat. yesterday it was observed that he was feeble and ailing. the princes of anhalt and the count albert of mansfeld, with dr. jonas and his other friends, entreated him to rest in his own room during the morning. he was not easily persuaded to spare himself, and probably would not have yielded then, had he not felt that the work of reconciliation was accomplished, in all save a few supplementary details. much of the forenoon, therefore, he reposed on a leathern couch in his room, occasionally rising, with the restlessness of illness, and pacing the room, or standing in the window praying, so that dr. jonas and coelius, who were in another part of the room, could hear him. he dined, however, at noon, in the great hall, with those assembled there. at dinner he said to some near him, "if i can, indeed, reconcile the rulers of my birth-place with each other, and then, with god's permission, accomplish the journey back to wittemberg, i would go home and lay myself down to sleep in my grave, and let the worms devour my body." he was not one weakly to sigh for sleep before night; and we now know too well from how deep a sense of bodily weariness and weakness that wish sprang. tension of heart and mind, and incessant work,--the toil of a daily mechanical labourer, with the keen, continuous thought of the highest thinker,--working as much as any drudging slave, and as intensely as if all he did was his delight,--at sixty-three the strong, peasant frame was worn out as most men's are at eighty, and he longed for rest. in the afternoon he complained of painful pressure on the breast, and requested that it might be rubbed with warm cloths. this relieved him a little; and he went to supper again with his friends in the great hall. at table he spoke much of eternity, and said he believed his own death was near; yet his conversation was not only cheerful, but at times gay, although it related chiefly to the future world. one near him asked whether departed saints would recognize each other in heaven. he said, yes, he thought they would. when he left the supper-table he went to his room. in the night,--last night,--his two sons, paul and martin, thirteen and fourteen years of age, sat up to watch with him, with justus jonas, whose joys and sorrows he had shared through so many years. coelius and aurifaber also were with him. the pain in the breast returned, and again they tried rubbing him with hot cloths. count albert came, and the countess, with two physicians, and brought him some shavings from the tusk of a sea-unicorn, deemed a sovereign remedy he took it, and slept till ten. then he awoke, and attempted once more to pace the room a little; but he could not, and returned to bed. then he slept again till one. during those two or three hours of sleep, his host albrecht, with his wife, ambrose, jonas, and luther's son, watched noiselessly beside him, quietly keeping up the fire. everything depended on how long he slept, and how he woke. the first words he spoke when he awoke sent a shudder of apprehension through their hearts. he complained of cold, and asked them to pile up more fire. alas! the chill was creeping over him which no effort of man could remove. dr. jonas asked him if he felt very weak. "oh," he replied, "how i suffer! my dear jonas, i think i shall die here, at eisleben, where i was born and baptized." his other friends were awakened, and brought in to his bed-side. jonas spoke of the sweat on his brow as a hopeful sign, but dr. luther answered-- "it is the cold sweat of death. i must yield up my spirit, for my sickness increaseth." then he prayed fervently, saying-- "heavenly father! everlasting and merciful god thou hast revealed to me thy dear son, our lord jesus christ. him have i taught; him have i experienced; him have i confessed; him i love and adore as my beloved saviour, sacrifice, and redeemer--him whom the godless persecute, dishonour, and reproach. o heavenly father, though i must resign my body, and be borne away from this life, i know that i shall be with him for ever. take my poor soul up to thee!" afterwards he took a little medicine, and, assuring his friends that he was dying, said three times-- "father, into thy hands do i commend my spirit. thou hast redeemed me, thou faithful god. truly _god hath so loved the world_!" then he lay quiet and motionless. those around sought to rouse him, and began to rub his chest and limbs, and spoke to him, but he made no reply. then jonas and coelius, for the solace of the many who had received the truth from his lips, spoke aloud, and said-- "venerable father, do you die trusting in christ, and in the doctrine you have constantly preached?" he answered by an audible and joyful "yes!" that was his last word on earth. then turning on his right side, he seemed to fall peaceably asleep for a quarter of an hour. once more hope awoke in the hearts of his children and his friends; but the physician told them it was no favourable symptom. a light was brought near his face; a death-like paleness was creeping over it, and his hands and feet were becoming cold. gently once more he sighed; and, with hands folded on his breast, yielded up his spirit to god without a struggle. this was at four o'clock in the morning of the th of february. and now, in the house opposite the church where he was baptized, and signed with the cross for the christian warfare, martin luther lies--his warfare accomplished, his weapons laid aside, his victory won--at rest beneath the standard he has borne so nobly. in the place where his eyes opened on this earthly life his spirit has awakened to the heavenly life. often he used to speak of death as the christian's true birth, and of this life as but a growing into the chrysalis-shell in which the spirit lives till its being is developed, and it bursts the shell, casts off the web, struggles into life, spreads its wings and sours up to god. to eva and me it seems a strange, mysterious seal set on his faith, that his birth-place and his place of death--the scene of his nativity to earth and heaven--should be the same. we can only say, amidst irrepressible tears, those words often on his lips, "o death! bitter to those whom thou leavest in life!" and "fear not, _god liveth still_." xxxviii. elsè's story. _march_, it is all over. the beloved, revered form is with us again, but luther our father, our pastor, our friend, will never be amongst us more. his ceaseless toil and care for us all have worn him out,--the care which wastes life more than sorrow,--care such as no man knew since the apostle paul, which only faith such as st. paul's enabled him to sustain so long. this morning his widow, his orphan sons and daughter, and many of the students and citizens went out to the eastern gate of the city to meet the funeral procession. slowly it passed through the streets, so crowded, yet so silent, to the city church where he used to preach. fritz came with the procession from eisleben, and eva, with heinz and agnes, are also with us, for it seemed a necessity to us all once more to feel and see our beloved around us, now that death has shown us the impotence of a nation's love to retain the life dearest and most needed of all. fritz has been telling us of that mournful funeral journey from eisleben. the counts of mansfeld, with more than fifty horsemen, and many princes, counts, and barons, accompanied the coffin. in every village through which they passed the church-bells tolled as if for the prince of the land; at every city gate magistrates, clergy, young and old, matrons, maidens, and little children, thronged to meet the procession, clothed in mourning, and chanting funeral hymns?--german evangelical hymns of hope and trust, such as he had taught them to sing. in the last church in which it lay before reaching its final resting-place at wittemberg, the people gathered around it, and sang one of his own hymns, "i journey hence in peace," with voices broken by sobs and floods of tears. thus day and night the silent body was borne slowly through the thuringian land. the peasants once more remembered his faithful affection for them, and everywhere, from village and hamlet, and from every little group of cottages, weeping men and women pressed forward to do honour to the poor remains of him they had so often misunderstood in life. after pastor bugenhagen's funeral sermon from luther's pulpit, melancthon spoke a few words beside the coffin in the city church. they loved each other well. when melancthon heard of his death he was most deeply affected, and said in the lecture-room,-- "the doctrine of the forgiveness of sins and of faith in the son of god, has not been discovered by any human understanding, but has been revealed unto us by god _through this man_ whom he has raised up." in the city church, beside the coffin, before the body was lowered into its last resting-place near the pulpit where he preached, dr. melancthon pronounced these words in latin, which caspar creutziger immediately translated into german,-- "every one who truly knew him, must bear witness that he was a benevolent, charitable man, gracious in all his discourse, kindly and most worthy of love, and neither rash, passionate, self-willed, or ready to take offence. and, nevertheless, there were also in him an earnestness and courage in his words and bearing such as become a man like him. his heart was true and faithful, and without falsehood. the severity which he used against the foes of the doctrine in his writings did not proceed from a quarrelsome or angry disposition, but from great earnestness and zeal for the truth. he always showed a high courage and manhood, and it was no little roar of the enemy which could appall him. menaces, dangers, and terror dismayed him not. so high and keen was his understanding, that he alone in complicated, dark, and difficult affairs soon perceived what was to be counselled and to be done. neither, as some think, was he regardless of authority, but diligently regarded the mind and will of those with whom he had to do. his doctrine did not consist in rebellious opinions made known with violence; it is rather an interpretation of the divine will and of the true worship of god, an explanation of the word of god, namely of the gospel of christ. now he is united with the prophets of whom he loved to talk. now they greet him as their fellow-labourer, and with him praise the lord who gathers and preserves his church. but we must retain a perpetual, undying recollection of this our beloved father, and never let his memory fade from our hearts." his effigy will be placed in the city church, but his living portrait is enshrined in countless hearts. his monuments are the schools throughout the land, every hallowed pastor's home, and above all, "the german bible for the german people!" wittemberg, _april_, . we stand now in the foremost rank of the generations of our time. our father's house on earth has passed away for ever. gently, not long after dr luther's death, our gentle mother passed away, and our father entered on the fulfilment of those never-failing hopes to which, since his blindness, his buoyant heart has learned more and more to cling. scarcely separated a year from each other, both in extreme old age, surrounded by all dearest to them on earth, they fell asleep in jesus. and now fritz, who has an appointment at the university, lives in the paternal house with his eva and our thekla, and the children. of all our family i sometimes think thekla's life is the most blessed. in our evangelical church, also, i perceive, god by his providence makes nuns; good women, whose wealth of love is poured out in the church; whose inner as well as whose outer circle is the family of god. how many whom she has trained in the school and nursed in the seasons of pestilence or adversity, live on earth to call her blessed, or live in heaven to receive her into the everlasting habitations! and among the reasons why her life is so high and loving, no doubt one is, that socially her position is one not of exaltation but of lowliness. she has not replaced, by any conventional dignities of the cloister, god's natural dignities of wife and mother. through life hers has been the _lowest_ place; therefore, among other reasons, i oft think in heaven it may be the _highest_. but we shall not grudge it her, eva and chriemhild and atlantis and i. with what joy shall we see those meek and patient brows crowned with the brightest crowns of glory and immortal joy! the little garden behind the augustei has become a sacred place. luther's widow and children still live there. those who knew him, and therefore loved him best, find a sad pleasure in lingering under the shadow of the trees which used to shelter him, beside the fountain and the little fish-pond which he made, and the flowers he planted, and recalling his words and his familiar ways; how he used to thank god for the fish from the pond, and the vegetables sent to his table from the garden; how he used to wonder at the providence of god, who fed the sparrows and all the little birds, "which must cost him more in a year than the revenue of the king of france;" how he rejoiced in the "dew, that wonderful work of god," and the rose, which no artist could imitate, and the voice of the birds. how living the narratives of the bible became when he spoke of them!--of the great apostle paul whom he so honoured, but pictured as "an insignificant-looking, meagre man, like philip melancthon;" or of the virgin mary, "who must have been a high and noble creature, a fair and gracious maiden, with a kind sweet voice;" or of the lowly home at nazareth, "where the saviour of the world was brought up as a little obedient child." and not one of us, with all his vehemence, could ever remember a jealous or suspicious word, or a day of estrangement, so generous and trustful was his nature. often, also, came back to us the tones of that rich, true voice, and of the lute or lyre, which used so frequently to sound from the dwelling-room with the large window, at his friendly entertainments, or in his more solitary hours. then, in twilight hours of quiet, intimate converse, mistress luther can recall to us the habits of his more inner home life--how in his sicknesses he used to comfort her, and when she was weeping would say, with irrepressible tears, "dear käthe, our children trust us, though they cannot understand; so must we trust god. it is well if we do; all comes from him." and his prayers morning and evening, and frequently at meals, and at other times in the day--his devout repeating of the smaller catechism "to god"--his frequent fervent utterance of the lord's prayer, or of psalms from the psalter, which he always carried with him as a pocket prayer-book. or, at other times, she may speak reverently of his hours of conflict, when his prayers became a tempest--a torrent of vehement supplication--a wrestling with god, a son in agony at the feet of a father. or, again, of his sudden wakings in the night, to encounter the unseen devil with fervent prayer, or scornful defiance, or words of truth and faith. more than one among us knew what reason he had to believe in the efficacy of prayer. melancthon, especially, can never forget the day when he lay at the point of death, half unconscious, with eyes growing dim, and luther came and exclaimed with dismay,-- "god save us! how successfully has the devil misused this mortal frame!" and then turning from the company towards the window, to pray, looking up to the heavens, he came (as he himself said afterwards), "as a mendicant and a suppliant to god, and pressed him with all the promises of the holy scriptures he could recall; so that god must hear me, if ever again i should trust his promises." after that prayer, he took melancthon by the hand, and said, "be of good cheer, philip, you will not die." and from that moment melancthon began to revive and recover consciousness, and was restored to health. especially, however, we treasure all he said of death and the resurrection, of heaven and the future world of righteousness and joy, of which he so delighted to speak. a few of these sayings i may record for my children. "in the papacy, they made pilgrimages to the shrines of the saints--to rome, jerusalem, st. jago--to atone for sins. but now, we in faith can make true pilgrimages which really please god. when we diligently read the prophets, psalms, and evangelists, we journey towards god, not through cities of the saints, but in our thoughts and hearts, and visit the true promised land and paradise of everlasting life. "the devil has sworn our death, but he will crack a deaf nut. the kernel will be gone." he had so often been dangerously ill that the thought of death was very familiar to him. in one of his sicknesses he said, "i know i shall not live long. my brain is like a knife worn to the hilt; it can cut no longer." "at coburg i used to go about and seek for a quiet place where i might be buried, and in the chapel under the cross i thought i could lie well. but now i am worse than then. god grant me a happy end! i have no desire to live longer." when asked if people could be saved under the papacy who had never heard his doctrine of the gospel, he said, "many a monk have i seen, before whom, on his death-bed, they held the crucifix, as was then the custom. through faith in his merits and passion, they may, indeed, have been saved." "what is our sleep," he said, "but a kind of death? and what is death itself but a night sleep? in sleep all weariness is laid aside, and we become cheerful again, and rise in the morning fresh and well. so shall we awake from our graves in the last day, as though we had only slept a night, and bathe our eyes and rise fresh and well. "i shall rise," he said, "and converse with you again. this finger, on which is this ring, shall be given to me again. all must be restored. 'god will create new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.' there all will be pure rapture and joy. those heavens and that earth will be no dry, barren sand. when a man is happy, a tree, a nosegay, a flower, can give him gladness. heaven and earth will be renewed, and we who believe shall be everywhere _at home_. here it is not so; we are driven hither and thither, that we may have to sigh for that heavenly fatherland." "when christ causes the trumpet to peal at the last day, all will come forth like the insects which in winter lie as dead, but when the sun comes, awake to life again; or as the birds who lie all the winter hidden in clefts of the rocks, or in hollow banks by the river sides, yet live again in the spring." he said at another time, "go into the garden, and ask the cherry-tree how it is possible that from a dry, dead twig, can spring a little bud, and from the bud can grow cherries. go into the house and ask the matron how it can be that from the eggs under the hen living chickens will come forth. for if god does thus with cherries and birds, canst thou not honour him by trusting that if he let the winter come over thee--suffer thee to die and decay in the ground--he can also, in the true summer, bring thee forth again from the earth, and awaken thee from the dead?" "o gracious god!" he exclaimed, "come quickly, come at last! i wait ever for that day--that morning of spring!" and he waits for it still. not now, indeed, on earth, "in what kind of place we know not," as he said; "but most surely free from all grief and pain, resting in peace and in the love and grace of god." we also wait for that day of redemption, still in the weak flesh and amidst the storm and the conflict; but strong and peaceful in the truth martin luther taught us, and in the god he trusted to the last. the end. [illustration: dr. martin luther.] life of luther, with several introductory and concluding chapters from general church history. by gustav just. (translated from the german by s. and h.) [illustration] st. louis, mo. concordia publishing house. copyright, , by concordia publishing house, st. louis, mo. contents. chapter i. the christians of the first century " ii. the persecutions " iii. constantine and the spreading of christianity in germany " iv. popery and monkery " v. the forerunners of the reformation " vi. luther's childhood " vii. luther's student days " viii. luther in the cloister " ix. luther as teacher " x. luther the reformer " xi. luther the mighty warrior " xii. luther the staunch confessor " xiii. the fanatics and the peasants' war " xiv. the colloquy at marburg " xv. the augsburg confession " xvi. bible, catechism, and hymnbook " xvii. luther's family life " xviii. luther's last days and death " xix. afflictions of the lutheran church in germany after the reformation " xx. the lutheran church in america motto: remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of god: whose faith follow considering the end of their conversation. hebrews , . chapter i. the christians of the first century. . the apostles of the lord. when our lord and savior jesus christ bid farewell to his disciples on the mount of olives, and ascended into heaven, he commanded them to tarry in jerusalem until they were endued with power from on high. in this power they were to go forth into all the world and bear witness of that which they had seen and heard. he said unto them: "but ye shall receive power after that the holy ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in jerusalem, and in all judaea, and in samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth," acts , . the disciples faithfully executed this command of the lord; for after the day of pentecost upon which they had received the holy ghost, they went forth and proclaimed the gospel of christ crucified in jerusalem, in judaea, in the surrounding countries, and in the whole world. they baptized jews and heathen, and everywhere founded christian congregations. but at once the word of the lord was fulfilled: "if they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you," john , . for the spreading of christianity aroused bitter enmity among jews and gentiles against the disciples of the lord. _james_, the brother of john, was the first of the apostles to suffer martyrdom at jerusalem. we are told: "when the officer, who was to bring him into court, saw how steadfastly james adhered to his faith in christ, he was so affected, that he confessed himself likewise a christian. thus both of them were condemned. while they were being led away he begged james to forgive him, whereupon the apostle replied, 'peace be with thee,' and kissed him." hereupon both were beheaded at the command of herod agrippa. [illustration: the apostle peter.] when herod saw that this pleased the jews, he had _peter_ also apprehended and cast into prison, from which the apostle was miraculously delivered by an angel. fearlessly he continued to preach christ and founded many congregations in asia minor. the legend says that he was crucified under emperor nero at rome. [illustration: the evangelist matthew.] _james_, the lord's brother, was bishop of the congregation at jerusalem. because of his pious life, he was at first highly esteemed among the jews. but finally he also became an object of their hatred. the legend reports that the high priest led him to the pinnacle of the temple and there commanded him to deny christ. when, however, he boldly confessed his savior, he was hurled to the ground below. then the enraged mob pressed about him in order to stone him to death, when he cried out upon his knees, "i implore thee, god father, for them; for they know not what they do." then a tanner stepped up and killed him with a club. [illustration: the evangelist john.] _philip_ is said to have perished in phrygia, _bartholomew_ in asia minor, _thomas_ in india proper, and _andrew_ in scythia. _john_, at first, labored in jerusalem, and later became pastor of the congregation at ephesus. for a time he was banished to the isle of patmos, afterward, however, he was permitted to return to ephesus. when, because of his advanced age, he could no longer preach nor walk, he would have himself carried into the assembly and would always address it in these words, "little children, love one another." he died a natural death, nearly one hundred years of age. [illustration: the apostle paul.] chief of all the apostles was the apostle of the gentiles, _paul_. although he did not belong to the twelve disciples of the lord, he was, nevertheless, directly called and made a chosen vessel of the lord. before his conversion his name was saul, and he belonged to the strict sect of the pharisees. being an enemy of the lord's disciples, he was gratified to see stephen expire when stoned to death by the jews. soon thereafter he himself became a zealous persecutor of the christians in jerusalem, and wished to continue his cruel work also in damascus. but on the way thither he was converted by the lord and called to be an apostle. thenceforth he preached the gospel of the savior of sinners, especially among the gentiles, and soon many christian congregations arose also among them. but he also shared the fate of the other apostles; he likewise suffered death for the doctrine of christ. about a. d. he was taken a prisoner to rome. there he abode two years. chained to a soldier he preached the gospel in that city and wrote many letters to the congregations which had been founded by him among the gentiles. for a short time he regained his liberty, but was imprisoned a second time. in or a. d. he suffered martyrdom, being beheaded under nero. . the first christian congregations. "and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers," acts , . this, in a few words, is the picture which the "acts of the apostles" paints of the first christian congregation at jerusalem. the first christians were diligent and attentive hearers of god's word. thereby they grew in knowledge and in the faith of the exalted savior, and in his power they defied all temptations and persecutions. through the word they remained in communion with their head, jesus christ, and practiced intimate fellowship with each other. this showed itself in breaking of bread, holy communion, and in their united praying, praising, and giving of thanks. how intense their love was for their savior and their brethren, we may see from the following words in the acts: "and the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul; neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. neither was there any among them that lacked, for as many as were possessed of lands and houses sold them and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet; and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need," acts , . . they were ready to sacrifice life itself for their savior and for each other. after their lord's example they practiced charity towards their enemies, and prayed for them. they obtained favor with god and man, and the lord added daily to the church such as should be saved. for many jews forsook their national faith and joined the christian congregation. true, some hypocrites and false christians were found among them, as the example of ananias and sapphira plainly shows. as with the congregation at jerusalem, so with all other christian congregations of the first century the word of the apostles was the only rule and guide of faith and life. the apostles were the first teachers of the congregations. together with the apostles the presbyters and elders, sometimes also called bishops, presided over the congregations. it was their duty to conduct divine services and watch over faith and life of the congregations. they were assisted by the deacons and almoners to whom was entrusted the care for the poor and the sick. sunday was chosen by the christians as their day of public worship because on this day the lord jesus arose from the dead. at first the congregation assembled at the homes of its members. it was only later that churches were built for this purpose. at these services, spiritual hymns and psalms were sung, portions of the holy scriptures were read and explained, and prayers offered. holy communion was celebrated every sunday, and was received by the entire congregation. strict discipline was practiced in the christian congregation. if anyone walked disorderly, he was admonished; if, in spite of this, he continued impenitent, he was excluded from the christian congregation as a heathen and publican, and not received again until he repented. . the destruction of jerusalem. at last the word of jesus was fulfilled: "for the day shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another: because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation." the terrible judgment drew near! the cruel emperor nero at that time ruled in rome. under him the jews rebelled and drove the romans from their country. nero sent his general vespasian to chastise the rebels. victoriously he pressed forward. soon thereafter nero died, and vespasian was recalled and himself elected emperor. his son titus was to complete the chastisement of the jews. in the spring of a. d. he marched against jerusalem with an enormous army and laid siege to the city. his demand that the jews surrender, in order to save their city and magnificent temple, was rejected with scorn by the proud leaders. titus at once cast a trench about the city, and bombarded it by means of catapults. [illustration: the destruction of jerusalem.] the condition of the city was frightful. it happened to be the time of the passover, and because of this festival more than two millions of people had assembled in jerusalem. they were not at one among themselves; some were in favor of surrendering to the romans, others were determined to resist to the last. the latter gained the ascendency, and filled with ferocity and desperation they fought against the romans. no one dared even to speak of surrender, because the leaders had forbidden it under penalty of death. soon frightful famine and much other misery arose. everything was eaten, even the most disgusting things, as, for instance, the excrements of animals; yes, a woman of noble birth killed and devoured her own child. epidemics broke out and carried off thousands. because the corpses could not be buried, they were thrown over the walls and filled the trenches. yet, in spite of this, the jews would not surrender. then titus took the city by storm, and the romans killed and slaughtered whatever came in their way. the temple was defended by the jews with great stubbornness. titus had commanded to preserve this building, but a soldier threw a firebrand into it, and soon the magnificent edifice was enveloped in flames. the city of jerusalem was laid even with the ground, according to the word of the lord: "not one stone shall remain upon another," luke , . the siege had lasted four months, and in this time one million of jews had perished. the prisoners were led away, some being compelled to fight with wild beasts in the arena, others being sold into slavery.--but what had become of the christians? as the swallows forsake the house whose walls the masons are tearing down, so the congregation of the lord had left jerusalem before the siege, and had found a refuge in the mountain village of pella, on the dead sea, on the other side of the river jordan. chapter ii. the persecutions. . the persecutions under nero, decius, and diocletian. about the year a. d. the apostles of the lord had all fallen asleep. the preaching of the gospel, however, had not ceased, but was carried on vigorously everywhere, and now persecutions against the christians arose also among the heathen. they began already under _nero_. in a. d. this cruel tyrant set fire to rome, the great capital of the then known world, and amused himself with the spectacle. the conflagration raged for six days, and reduced the greater part of the city to ashes. in order to shield himself against the wrath of the people, who accused him of kindling the fire, he charged the hated christians with the crime. these were now forced to endure the most excruciating torments and tortures. many were sewed into the skins of wild beasts, and then thrown to dogs who tore them to pieces. others were covered with wax and pitch, placed in the imperial gardens and set afire, that as torches they might illuminate the darkness of the night. one of the most severe persecutions occurred under emperor _decius_. for nearly half a century the christians had lived in peace, but this peace had made many of them secure and lukewarm. origen, a noted teacher of the time, complains: "some attend church only on the high festivals, and then, generally, only to pass away time. some leave the church as soon as the sermon is ended, without speaking to the teachers or asking them questions; others do not listen to a single word, but stand in some corner of the church and chatter with each other." from this sinful security they were aroused by the persecution bursting over them like a sudden storm. the emperor issued a decree that the christians were to be forced by threats and tortures to sacrifice to the heathen deities. whoever refused to do this was to suffer death. this terrible decree caused the greatest consternation among the christians. many, especially of the rich, readily ran to the altars and offered the required sacrifices. yes, so great was their fear of man that they denied ever having been christians at all. others, in spite of tortures, remained steadfast at first, but finally also denied their faith. however, there were also such as remained firm in the faith and praised god who considered them worthy to suffer death for christ's sake. the last and most frightful of all persecutions began under emperor _diocletian_. the churches of the christians were torn down, the collections of holy scriptures were burned, and innumerable christians were tortured to death. they were left to starve in dungeons; they were forced with bare feet to walk upon hot, burning coals, or sharp nails; they were fastened to wooden machines by means of which their limbs were torn from their bodies. the torturers tore their flesh with iron nails, or covered them with honey, and laid them bound into the sun that they might be stung to death by the flies. but many christians suffered these tortures with great firmness and could not be forced to forsake christ. the executioners, finally, became weary, their swords grew dull, and--the church of the lord remained unconquerable. [illustration: christians suffering death in the circus.] . ignatius. ignatius was a disciple of the apostles and presided over a flourishing congregation at antioch. emperor trajan demanded of him to deny his savior and sacrifice to the gods. but he declared that the gods of the heathen were vanities. he said, "there is but one god, who has made heaven and earth, and one christ, whose kingdom is my inheritance." because of this confession he was taken to rome and suffered martyrdom. he listened to his death sentence with composure, even with joy; he desired to depart and to be with christ. he wrote concerning his journey: "from syria to rome i fought with wild beasts who became the more enraged the more benefits were bestowed upon them. however, let them throw me into the fire, let them nail me to the cross, let them tear my limbs from my body--what is all that, if i may enjoy jesus!" how joyfully he met death can be seen from the words he addressed to the romans: "i am seeking him who died for us; he is my gain that has been preserved for me. let me follow the sufferings of my god; my love is crucified; i long for the bread of god, for the flesh of jesus christ." to the christians who attempted to have him set at liberty he wrote: "do not trouble yourselves on my account; it is better for me to die for christ's sake than to rule over the kingdoms of this world. i am god's wheat, and am to be ground by the wild beasts in order to become pure bread. what of it if the beasts become my grave--thus i trouble no one in my death." upon his arrival in rome he was delivered to the governor. a few days thereafter he was thrown to the wild beasts, who fell upon him and tore him to pieces, while the assembled heathen witnessed the frightful spectacle with fiendish delight. his remaining bones were gathered by his faithful servants and laid to rest in antioch. . polycarp. he was a disciple of st. john, and, later on, became bishop of smyrna, in asia minor. under marcus aurelius he suffered martyrdom at the stake. polycarp, listening to the entreaties of his congregation, who would gladly have saved him from his persecutors, fled to a country seat. his abode was soon betrayed, and he was delivered to his captors who found him engaged in prayer with several friends. noticing that the house was surrounded, he said, "the lord's will be done!" thereupon he invited his enemies in, received them in the most hospitable manner, and asked them to grant him one hour for prayer. with so much earnestness he prayed to his savior that even the heathen were touched by his devotion. he was led back to the city on an ass. there he was at first kindly urged to sacrifice to the gods, but he replied, "i will not follow your advice." at sight of the aged man (he was ninety years old) the governor was touched and said to him, "consider your great age. swear by the emperor, deny christ, and i will release you!" polycarp exclaimed: "for eighty-six years i have served him, and he has done me no ill; how can i now denounce my king and my savior?" the governor said, "i will throw you to the wild beasts, or i will force you by fire, if you do not change your mind!" polycarp replied, "you threaten me with the fire that burns for a short time and is soon extinguished, because you do not know the fire of the coming judgment which is in store for the wicked. why do you hesitate?" when hereupon the herald in the arena announced, "polycarp confesses himself to be a christian," the entire multitude cried, "to the lions with polycarp!" but he was condemned to die at the stake, and at once the enraged people on all sides gathered fagots for the burning. polycarp now took off his own clothes, loosed his own girdle, and even tried to take off his own shoes. his prayer, not to nail him to the stake, was granted. firm and immovable he stood against the erected pole and praised god with a loud voice. the pile was kindled. but it is reported that the fire would not touch this faithful witness of the lord. the flames surrounded him, as sails caught by the wind, and his body shone like gold and silver that is being refined in the oven. as his body was not consumed the executioner thrust his sword into his breast, and the corpse fell into the fire. the members of his sorrowing congregation piously gathered his remains and interred them. . perpetua. in the beginning of the third century the christians were fiercely persecuted in northern africa. among the prisoners at carthage there was a young woman of noble birth, perpetua. she was the mother of a nursing child. her heathen father took the greatest pains to persuade his daughter to forsake christ. in pleading accents he begged her, "my daughter, have pity upon my gray hairs. oh, pity your father, if i have ever been worthy of this name! take pity on your child which cannot survive you. can nothing move you, my daughter? if you perish we will be disgraced before all men!" in saying this her father kissed her hands and fell down at her feet. but perpetua did not deny the lord; she remained firm and resisted all temptations in the strength of him whom we are to love more than father or mother. on the day before her execution she celebrated the customary love feast with her fellow prisoners, and to the gazing heathen she declared, "look straight into our faces, that you may know us on the day of judgment!" filled with consternation and shame, many of the heathen walked away and were converted.--the day of her deliverance approached; the fights with the wild beasts began. perpetua, together with her maid felicitas, was thrown to a wild cow, which at once tossed them to the ground. to her brother who stood near she cried, "abide in the faith, love one another, and do not let my sufferings frighten you!" finally, she received the death blow at the hands of a gladiator. thus she entered into glory, and received the crown of life at his hands to whom she proved faithful unto death. chapter iii. constantine and the spreading of christianity in germany. . constantine. after many anxious years a time of refreshing peace finally came for the christians. for by god's wonderful providence a man kindly disposed toward the christians ascended the roman throne. this was emperor constantine. his father had already been a friend of the christians, and his mother had even accepted the faith. after his father's death, constantine was proclaimed emperor by the army. this was in the summer of . when, in , he marched against maxentius, who had disputed his power in italy, he called upon the god of the christians for help against his opponent. the opposing forces met in the vicinity of rome. while the sun was setting, it is reported that constantine saw in the heavens a cross bearing the bright inscription: _in hoc signo vinces_, _i. e._, "you will conquer in this sign!" he at once had the eagles removed from the standards, and had them replaced by the sign of the cross. hereupon his army marched from victory to victory till the power of his enemy was completely broken. and from this time constantine became a zealous protector of the christian church. he published a law permitting every roman citizen to become a christian. he even went so far as to make the christian religion the religion of the state. he favored the christians by appointing them to high public offices. sad to say, this increased the number of those who accepted christianity for the sake of worldly gain. the church now, indeed, had rest from without. but satan tried to ruin it by false doctrine. a bishop, named arius, arose and taught: "christ is not true god, but only a creature." constantine then called a church council to assemble at nice, in asia minor, in a. d. three hundred and eighteen bishops assembled there with him. in the discussions which followed athanasius, a deacon, and afterwards bishop, of alexandria, took a most prominent part. with irresistible eloquence he effected the overthrow of the false doctrine of arius and the victorious establishment of saving truth. constantine died on pentecost day, , having been baptized a short time before. in compliance with his last wish he was buried in the church of the apostles, at constantinople. . the spreading of christianity in germany. now the time had come when the light of saving truth was to shine over germany and dispel the night of heathenish darkness. for some time already the gospel had been carried to germany by christian merchants and roman prisoners, and thus it came to pass that at isolated places christian congregations were founded; but the real spreading of christianity began in the sixth century through missionaries from ireland and england.--among the first to visit germany was the irish monk _fridolin_. together with his companions he arrived in the black forest among the alemanni. with visible success he preached the gospel to these children of the forest. he died in , and was succeeded by _columban_, who, together with twelve disciples, brought the message of salvation in christ to the inhabitants of the present alsatia. but meeting with much opposition he fled to switzerland, and then to italy, where he died in , a true christian to the last.--his pupil _gallus_ had remained in switzerland and there had founded the farfamed cloister st. gallus. here he labored with signal blessing for the spreading of christianity among the swiss and suabian tribes, until, in , the lord called him to his reward. besides these messengers of the faith others also preached the gospel in germany, _emeran_ in bavaria, _kilian_ in wuertemberg. the latter suffered martyrdom with his followers in . twenty years after kilian's death the english presbyter _willibrod_, with eleven assistants, went to the frisians. at first the heathen king radbod offered stubborn resistance, but in time he had willibrod to baptize his own son. and after the king's death the mission work met with great success. because of the multitude of fish willibrod could scarcely haul in the net. after fifty years of faithful labor he died as bishop of utrecht, in the year . these and other missionaries were the real apostles of germany, and independent of rome. through their labors congregations were founded and flourished everywhere. before long, however, a man came to germany who subjugated the german church to the pope. this was winifred, also called _boniface_. he carried on his work mainly in thuringia, hessia, bavaria, and frisia. in , together with his companions, he was slain by the heathen frisians. the most stubborn resistance to christianity was offered by the saxons. only after thirty years of continuous warfare were they finally conquered by charles the great, and the gospel gained a foothold amongst them.--thus the gospel of christ sped from people to people, and in the year great numbers everywhere in germany confessed christ jesus and him crucified. chapter iv. popery and monkery. . the origin of popery. when, in the course of time, the christian church continued to expand, it became necessary for the larger congregations to engage more than one pastor. an immediate consequence was that one of them attained to higher eminence and was called the bishop by preference. great deference was especially paid to the bishops of rome, of jerusalem, of alexandria, of antioch, and of constantinople. the smaller congregations frequently sought their advice and requested their decision in difficult matters. but the power and the authority of the roman bishops soon outstripped that of the rest. in consequence of this they assumed a haughty demeanor, exalted themselves above the other bishops, and, finally, arrogated to themselves the position of supreme judges in the church of god, and grew very indignant if any one dared to dispute their authority. they now claimed that peter had founded the congregation at rome and had presided over it for some time as its bishop; that he had been the chief of the apostles, the authorized viceregent of christ upon earth, and that his successors, the bishops of rome, had inherited these powers from him. although these arrogant claims were by no means generally admitted, yet the roman bishop succeeded in enforcing his demands. he was pleased to have himself called "_papa_," or "pope." the western bishops finally submitted and acknowledged him to be the supreme head of the church. in the east, however, the bishop of constantinople was accorded the highest rank. both bishops now fought for the supremacy in the church, and as neither would submit to the other a schism resulted. there arose the roman catholic and the greek catholic church, and this division remains to the present day. when, in , pipin, the king of the franks, presented to the pope a large territory in central italy, the pope became a temporal prince. from now on the popes continually sought to increase their temporal power and speak the decisive word in the councils of the mighty of this earth. the man who raised popery to the highest pinnacle of its power was pope gregory vii, formerly a monk called hildebrand, the son of an artisan. in he ascended the papal throne. he forbade the priests to marry, and demanded that all bishops, who at that time were also temporal princes, should receive their office and their possessions, even their temporal power, not from their worldly overlords, but from his hands. he asserted: "as the moon receives its light from the sun, so emperors and princes receive their power from the pope. the pope is the viceregent of christ upon earth, where the mighty of this world owe him obedience; he alone has the right and the power to appoint them to office, or to depose them." gregory died . his successors accepted his principles. thus innocent iii demeaned himself as the absolute spiritual lord and master over all christian princes and kings, and forced them to submit to his power. then the word of holy scriptures, concerning the roman popes, came to pass, thess. , : "who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called god, or that is worshiped; so that he as god sitteth in the temple of god, showing himself that he is god." . the false doctrines of popery. sad, indeed, grew the condition of the church under the popes. many bishops and priests busied themselves more with worldly affairs than with the word of god and the welfare of the church. the people were shamefully neglected. generally speaking, they had no schools, no books, and, especially, no bibles. there was scarcely any christian knowledge, for the word of the lord was hidden in those days. in consequence of this the saddest ignorance prevailed everywhere among the common people. such being the conditions, it was a small matter for satan to sow his tares among the wheat. with increasing frequency false doctrines appeared in the church and displaced the word of god. for some time already mass had been celebrated instead of holy communion. for the superstition had arisen, that christ was sacrificed anew by the priest when mass was celebrated on the altar. this false doctrine was supported by the other superstition that through his consecration the priest changed the bread and the wine into the real body and blood of christ. because they feared that the blood of christ might be spilled they denied the cup to the laity, and thus mutilated the lord's supper. early in its history popery invented the doctrine that the departed souls went to purgatory, where, by intense suffering, they might be cleansed from the dross of sin. however, it was held that the pope and the church had the power to shorten these pangs of purgatory by reading countless masses. whoever paid enough money was told that he need not remain long in purgatory. this proved to be a profitable business for the pope. for many rich already in their lifetime set aside large sums of money to pay for these masses. indulgence was another false doctrine. the popes taught: the church possesses an inexhaustible treasure in the merits of christ and of the saints. on this the pope can draw at will for the benefit of the living and of the dead, and with it forgive the sin of those who offer him therefor sufficient money, or other equivalents. in the stead of christ's suffering and merit, which becomes ours alone through faith, they substituted mere human works. christ, our true advocate, was thrust aside, and the saints were called upon for their protection and intercessions. the virgin mary, especially, became the refuge in time of need, and this gave rise to the shameful "mariolatry." nor did idolatry stop here. even pictures, statues, and real or supposed relics of the saints were set up for worship and adoration. thus was fulfilled the word of scriptures, thess. , . : "because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. and for this cause god shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie." . life in the monasteries. already in the time of the great persecutions many christians had fled into the forests, caves, and among the cliffs in order to spend their lives in pious meditation and devotion. when, in the time after constantine, the church grew more and more worldly, the number of those increased who thought that they could serve god better in quiet seclusion than amid the noise of a corrupt world. these were the so-called hermits. as a rule, they led a life of privations and self-inflicted tortures. in time, numbers of them united and adopted certain rules and laws by which their communities were governed. they also lived in their own buildings, called cloisters. these were generally built in inhospitable regions. whoever joined the order had to forsake all his worldly possessions, and vow to lead a life of celibacy and of absolute obedience to his superiors. these are the so-called monastic vows. this monastical life was regarded very highly by the people, and all kinds of legacies added gradually to the lands and riches of the cloisters. their number increased rapidly; and in the twelfth century there were thousands of them. the monks were the most zealous and the most faithful tools of antichrist, and everywhere endeavored to spread the pope's heresies. they incited the people to rebellion against their lawful government and spied out and persecuted those who would no longer submit to the pope. but it was above all the halo of false holiness which it possessed in the eyes of the people that made monkery such a curse to the church. men, women, and children ran into the cloister in order to be sure of eternal life; for the delusive notion prevailed that man could justify himself before god and be saved by his own works. and, at that, they regarded the works commanded by god of little account, esteeming their self-chosen, monkish practices of the highest importance. life in the monastery is, therefore, condemned by the words of christ: "in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." chapter v. the forerunners of the reformation. . peter walden. peter walden, who was a rich and pious merchant of the twelfth century, lived in lyons, an important city in southern france. one day he was sitting at meal with his friends and conversing on the evils of the time and the corruption of the church. suddenly one of his companions fell dead before their eyes. this occurrence made a deep impression on walden, and he sought now, more than ever before, the one thing that is needful. through diligent reading and study of holy scriptures he came to a knowledge of the truth, and his heart was filled with heavenly comfort and joy. the deeper he entered into the true meaning of the holy scriptures the more he recognized the errors and the decay of the roman catholic church. he saw that christendom had departed from the true way of salvation. he, therefore, felt constrained to bring the sweet gospel of christ to lost souls. in he sold all his possessions and traveled through the country, teaching and preaching. he had the four gospels translated into french and spread them among the people. the scattered seed sprung up and bore rich fruit; for very soon thousands wanted to hear of no other doctrine than the pure doctrine of god's word. walden and his adherents, called waldensians, taught: "in all questions pertaining to our salvation we dare trust no man or book, but must believe the holy scriptures only. there is but one mediator; the saints must not be worshiped; purgatory is a fable invented by men. there are but two sacraments, baptism and the lord's supper." their life conformed so well to their doctrine that king lewis of france exclaimed: "truly, these heretics are better than i and all my people!" the following is another beautiful testimony for the waldensians: "they lead a purer life than other christians. they do not swear, except necessity demands it, and beware of taking god's name in vain. they keep their promises faithfully; they are truthful in their words and live peacefully together in brotherly love." but the more their doctrine and life testified of their faith, the more the hatred against them increased. peter walden was forbidden to preach or explain the scriptures, and when, in spite of this, he continued to sow the seed of the word of god, he was excommunicated by the pope. he fled from one place to another, and everywhere proclaimed the gospel with signal blessing. his followers were most cruelly persecuted by the roman church, which used every means to destroy them. about a million of them were slain in continuous wars of persecution. seven thousand were slaughtered in a church at one time. a judge in spain had , of them burned alive and imprisoned , who perished enduring the most frightful tortures. but in spite of fire and sword they could not be extirpated, and exist unto this day. removed from the markets of the world, and distant from the great highways, the descendants of the waldensians live in the unapproachable mountain glens of savoy and piedmont. . john wyclif. john wyclif was doctor and professor of theology at the university of oxford. he directed his attacks chiefly against monkery, and unsparingly denounced the idling, the begging, and the perversion of religion by the monks. they therefore entered complaint against him with the archbishop, and wyclif was deposed from his chair at the university. from now on he testified even more decidedly against the errors and abuses of popery. he maintained: "the roman church is not superior to the other churches; peter had no preeminence over the other apostles, and the pope, as far as his power to forgive sins is concerned, is but the equal of every other pastor." he spoke very emphatically against indulgence, against the adoration of relics, and reproved the popular errors by which the poor souls were deceived. wyclif was now denounced as a heretic at the court of the pope, but his eloquent and masterful defense at the trial procured his release. he translated the bible into english and taught pious men to preach the gospel to the people. he died in at lutterworth, where he had been pastor. his numerous writings were spread by his followers throughout all europe, and especially bohemia, where they bore rich fruit. but the hatred against wyclif did not cease with his death. in compliance with an order of the council of constance, where his doctrines were condemned, his bones were exhumed, burned, and the ashes thrown into the river. [illustration: john huss.] . john huss. huss was born in at hussinecz, in bohemia. through reading the holy scriptures and the writings of wyclif he came to a knowledge of the truth and boldly lifted his voice against the errors and abuses prevalent in the church. he preached against indulgences, purgatory, and the ungodly life of the priests. thereby he became an object of hatred to the pope. he was soon excommunicated by the pope, and when he continued to preach in prague, where he was pastor, and was supported by that city, it was also placed under the ban. the churches were closed, the bells were silent, the dead were denied christian burial, baptisms and marriages could only be performed in the graveyards. huss was cited to appear at the council to be held at constance. although emperor sigismund promised him safe-conduct, nevertheless huss undertook the journey to constance foreboding no good. and indeed, in spite of the safe-conduct, he was taken and thrown into a foul prison immediately upon his arrival. when sigismund expressed his disapproval the monks told him that faith need not be kept with a heretic. huss defended himself before the council with great steadfastness, and as he would not recant he was condemned to die at the stake. he was deposed from the priesthood and made an object of ridicule and scorn. on his head was placed a paper cap painted with numerous devils who were tormenting a poor sinner. he was led out to execution, and on the way frequently called upon the savior for mercy. he was then chained to an upright pole, and hay and straw, saturated with pitch, were piled about him. once more he was tempted to recant and thus to save his life. but huss remained faithful. now the flames surrounded him. the smoke curled above him. "christ, thou lamb of god, have mercy upon me!" the faithful witness sang twice with a loud and clear voice. but when he began the third verse, he was overcome by smoke and flames and gave up the ghost. it is reported that while at the stake he prophesied: "to-day you are roasting a goose, but after a hundred years a swan will come, which ye will not roast." . jerome savonarola. in italy a man arose who was to startle the proud pope and his priests out of their security. this was jerome savonarola. the misery and the corruption in the church had driven him into the cloister. through the word of god he learned the truth, and then publicly denounced the depravity of his time. he was an eloquent and passionate preacher. he cried out: "before long the sword of the lord will come over italy and over all the earth, and then the church will be renewed!" the pope of that time lived in the grossest vices. rome was the hotbed of all sins and crimes. savonarola complained: "the poison is heaped up at rome to such an extent that it infects france, and germany, and all the world. things have come to such a pass that we must warn everyone against rome. rome has perverted the whole of scriptures!" by the pope he was anathematized, and by the temporal court condemned to die at the stake. with two of his companions he was to be hanged on the gallows, and then their corpses were to be burned. savonarola entertained the sure hope that judgment would come upon rome, and the lord would renew the corrupt church. he said: "rome will not be able to quench this fire, and if it is quenched god will light another; aye, it is kindled already in many places, but they do not know it. before long the desolation and idolatry of the roman pope will be reproved, and a teacher will be born whom no one can resist." on ascension day, may , , with cheerful resignation, he met death at the hand of the hangman. chapter vi. luther's childhood. . luther in the house of his parents. when savonarola breathed his last in the market place at florence, god had already chosen his servant who was to destroy the tyranny of the pope. the swan, prophesied by huss, appeared. for on november , , a son had been born to poor peasants in eisleben, at the foot of the hartz mountains. already on the following day he was baptized, and received the name martin, in honor of the saint to whom this day was sacred. his parents were hans and margaret luther. they came from the village moehra, having emigrated to eisleben. when martin was six months old they moved to the neighboring town mansfeld, where his father hoped to support his family by working in the mines. luther said of his ancestors: "i am the son of a peasant; my father, my grandfather, and my great-grandfather were all industrious peasants. later on my father moved to mansfeld, where he worked in the mines." again he said: "my parents, at first, were very poor. my father was a poor miner, and my mother often carried the wood upon her back in order to raise us children. they endured many hardships for our sake." the child was a great joy to its parents, and they loved it dearly. the father would often step to the cradle and pray loud and fervently that god would grant grace to his son that, mindful of his name, he might become a true luther and live a pure and sincere life. from earliest childhood both parents trained their boy to fear god and love all that is good. parental discipline, however, was most severe, and tended to make luther a very timid child. in later years he said: "my father once chastised me so severely that i fled from him and avoided him until he won me to himself again." and of his mother he said: "for the sake of an insignificant nut my mother once whipped me till the blood came. but their intentions were the best." luther at all times gratefully acknowledged this. . luther at school. little martin was not yet five years of age when, followed by the prayers of his parents, he was brought to the school at mansfeld. this school was situated upon a hillside, in the upper part of the city, and quite a distance from the boy's home. in inclement weather, when the road was bad, he was often carried there by his father or by nicolas oemler. here he zealously learned the ten commandments, the creed, and the lord's prayer; he was also instructed in reading, writing, and the principles of latin grammar. the school even surpassed his home in the severity of its discipline. the schoolmaster was one of those incapable men that treated his children as hangmen and bailiffs treat their prisoners. in one forenoon luther received fifteen whippings. such tyrannical treatment filled him and his fellow pupils with fear and timidity. the religious instruction which he received also served to intimidate and terrify him. he scarcely learned more than popish superstition and idolatry. true, at christmas time the church sang: "a child so fair is born for us to-day," but instead of the glad tidings: "unto you is born this day in the city of david a savior," hell-fire was preached in the school. luther says: "from youth i was trained to turn pale at the very mention of christ's name, for i was instructed to regard him as a severe and angry judge. we were all taught that we had to atone for our own sins, and because we could not do this we were directed to the saints in heaven and advised to invoke dear mother mary to pacify the wrath of christ and obtain mercy for us." chapter vii. luther's student days. . luther in magdeburg. when luther was fourteen years of age he bade farewell to his parents and home and, with his friend hans reinecke, went to magdeburg; for his father wished to give him a thorough education. having received no spending money from home, they were forced to live upon the alms gathered on the way from charitable hands. in magdeburg luther attended the high school, a noted school of that day. but here, as everywhere, the false doctrines of popery prevailed, and the sweet comfort of the gospel was not preached. the poor pupils were directed to perform such works and penances as the roman church considered meritorious. luther relates the following incident as illustrating the monastic sanctity of those days: "with these my eyes i saw a prince of anhalt in a friar's cowl begging for bread in the streets, and bending under the sack like an ass. he looked like a specter, nothing but skin and bones. whoever saw him smacked with devotion and had to be ashamed with his secular calling."--in bodily things also little martin had to endure much hardship. it is true, lodge and shelter were supplied by the city, and the instruction, given by the monks, was free of charge, but the pupils themselves had to provide their support. because of his father's poverty luther received but little assistance from home and was compelled to sing for his daily bread at the doors of the citizens. he relates the following story of his experiences at that time: "during the christmas holidays we made excursions into the neighboring villages and sang at the doors the christmas carols in four parts in order to obtain our living. at one time a peasant came out of his house and called to us in a rough tone of voice, 'boys, where are you?' this so terrified us that we scattered in all directions. we were so frightened that we did not notice the sausage in his hand, and it required no little coaxing to recall us." while at magdeburg luther was taken sick with a violent and distressing fever. although he suffered great thirst he was forbidden to drink water. but on a certain friday, when all had gone to church, his thirst became so unendurable that he crept upon his hands and knees into the kitchen, seized a vessel filled with fresh water, and drank it with great relish. then he dragged himself back to his bed, went soundly to sleep, and when he awoke the fever was gone.--lack of support forced him to leave magdeburg at the end of the year. . luther in eisenach. after a short stay under the parental roof luther complied with the wish of his parents and attended the high school at eisenach. his mother had many relatives there, and hoped that they would do something for poor martin. but these hopes were disappointed, and, therefore, at eisenach also he lived in great poverty. again he had to gain his daily bread by singing and saying prayers before the houses. the gifts so received were called particles, that is, crumbs. in after-years luther said: "i have also been such a beggar of 'particles,' taking my bread at the doors, especially in eisenach, my beloved city." at times, however, his poverty so depressed him that he determined to return to his parents and help his father in the mines. but at last god graciously provided for him. for some time already his earnest singing and praying had won for him the heart of a pious matron, frau cotta. one day, therefore, when, together with other scholars, he was again singing at her door she took him into her house and gave him a place at her table. thus by god's wonderful providence he was relieved of this care for his daily bread and could now joyfully devote himself entirely to his studies. luther never forgot his benefactress, mrs. cotta, and in later years, when her son studied at wittenberg, he received him into his house. [illustration: frau cotta taking luther into her home.] luther delighted in attending the latin school at eisenach. he was especially fond of the principal of the school, john trebonius, who treated his scholars with the greatest love and consideration. upon entering the schoolroom he would remove his academical cap, and did not replace it till he had taken his seat at the desk. to the other teachers he said, "among these young pupils sit some of whom god may make our future mayors, chancellors, learned doctors, and rulers. although you do not know them now, it is proper that you should honor them." luther outranked all his fellow pupils, and when, at one time, the celebrated professor trutvetter of erfurt visited eisenach luther, being the most fluent latin orator of the school, was called upon to deliver the address of welcome. after the reception trutvetter said to trebonius, "sir, you have a good school here. it is in excellent condition. keep an eye on that luther. there is something in that boy. by all means, prepare him for the university and send him to us at erfurt." thereupon he patted luther on the back and said, "my son, the lord has bestowed special gifts upon thee; use them faithfully in his service. when thou art ready and wishest to come to us at erfurt remember that thou hast a good friend there, doctor jodocus trutvetter. appeal to him, he will give thee a friendly reception." . luther in erfurt. at the expiration of four years luther finished his studies at eisenach and, in , seventeen years of age, he matriculated at the celebrated university at erfurt, where he found a fatherly friend in trutvetter. god had now so blessed his father's persevering diligence and economy that luther had to suffer no want at erfurt. in later years luther said in praise of his father: "he supported me at the university of erfurt with great love and fidelity, and by his arduous labor he helped me to attain my present position." his father wished martin to become a jurist, wherefore luther zealously devoted himself to the study of jurisprudence. although he was naturally of a wide-awake and cheerful disposition he, nevertheless, began his studies every morning with fervent prayers and attendance at mass. his motto was: diligent prayer is the half of study. here at erfurt, in the library, he found the book of all books, the bible, which he had never seen before. he was surprised to see that it contained more than the epistles and gospels which were usually read at church. while turning the leaves of the old testament he happened upon the story of samuel and hannah. he read it hurriedly with great interest and joy, and wished that god might some day give him such a book and make of him such a pious samuel. this wish was abundantly fulfilled--it is true, after enduring manifold tribulations and trials. while at the university luther was seized with a severe illness and he thought he was about to die. an old priest came to see him and comforted him with these words: "my dear bachelor, be of good cheer. you will not die of this illness. god will yet make a great man of you, who will comfort many people. for whom god loveth and whom he would make a blessing to his fellow men, upon him he early lays the cross; for in the school of affliction patient people learn much." luther, however, soon forgot this comfort. not long after this, while on a journey to his home with a companion, and not far from erfurt, he accidentally ran his rapier, which after the custom of the students hung at his side, into his leg, severing the main artery. his friend hurried back to call a physician. in the mean time luther endeavored to stanch the flow of blood lying on his back, compressing the wound. but the limb swelled frightfully, and luther, beset with mortal fear, cried out, "mary, help me!" in the following night the wound began to bleed afresh, and again he called upon mary only. later in life he said: "at that time, i would have died trusting in mary." not long after, death suddenly robbed him of a good friend, and this also tended to increase his melancholy. in such periods of depression he would often exclaim, "oh, when wilt thou become really pious and atone for thy sins, and obtain the grace of god?" with increasing power he then heard a voice within him saying: over there rise the peaceful walls of the augustinian cloister; they are beckoning you and saying, come to us! here, separated from the noise of the world, your trembling soul will find rest and peace. what was he to do?--for the sake of recreation luther, in , paid a visit to his parents. upon his return, in the vicinity of erfurt, a terrible storm suddenly broke upon him. the lightning, followed by a fearful crash of thunder, struck close beside him, and, overcome and stunned, he fell to the ground, crying out, "help, dear st. ann, i will immediately become a monk!" for it was only in this manner that he hoped to appease god and to find peace and rest for his soul. chapter viii. luther in the cloister. . entrance into the cloister. luther erroneously felt himself bound in conscience to keep his vow, and therefore, on july , , once more invited his intimate friends to meet him, in order to bid them farewell. they passed the time with song and instrumental music. as luther seemed to be happy and in the best of spirits no one dreamed of what was passing in his soul. but before his friends parted from him he informed them of his intention. at first they thought he was joking, and laughed at him. but when luther once more solemnly declared, "to-day you see me, and never again," they urgently besought him to give up his resolution. all their endeavors, however, were in vain, luther remained firm. on the evening of the th of july, therefore, they weepingly escorted him to the gate of the augustinian cloister within whose dark walls luther now sought rest and peace for his soul. when his father was subsequently asked to give his consent he became very indignant that his son had entered the cloister. on a later occasion, when hans luther paid his son a visit at erfurt and those about him praised his present monastic state, the father said: "god grant that it may not be a deception and satanic illusion. why, have you not heard that parents should be obeyed, and that nothing should be undertaken without their knowledge and advice?" after some time, however, he was somewhat pacified by his friends and said, "let it pass; god grant that good may come of it." [illustration: luther entering the cloister.] . disappointments in the cloister. luther was scrupulously exact in the performance of every work and penance prescribed by the cloister. he acted as doorkeeper, set the clock, swept the church, yes, he was even compelled to remove the human filth. the greatest hardship for him, however, was to travel the streets of the city with a bag, begging for alms. the monks told him, "it is begging, not studying, that enriches the cloister." and yet luther found time for diligent study of the bible. he learned to know the page and exact place of every verse of the scriptures, and he even committed to memory many passages from the prophets, although he did not understand them at that time. the prior of the cloister, dr. john staupitz, came to love him, released him from menial labors, and encouraged him to continue in the diligent study of holy scriptures. others thought different and said to luther, "why, brother martin, what is the bible! you ought to read the old fathers, they have extracted the substance of truth from the bible. the bible causes all disturbances." thus luther soon learned that the piety of most monks was nothing but pretense. in later years he wrote: "the monks are a lazy, idle people. the greatest vanity is found in the cloisters. they are servants of their bellies, and filthy swine." but if others sought carnal lust in the cloister luther led a most rigid and holy life. in the simplicity of his heart he sincerely worshiped the pope. he regarded huss as a terrible heretic, and he considered the very thought of him a great sin. and yet he could not resist the temptation to read this heretic's sermons. he confessed: "i really found so much in them that i was filled with consternation at the thought that such a man had been burned at the stake who could quote the scriptures with so much faith and power. but because his name was held in such horrible execration i closed the book and went away with a wounded heart." in luther was ordained to the priesthood, which made him very happy, for he supposed that now, as a priest, he could please god with greater and more glorious works. so thoroughly was luther enslaved in the bondage of popery. who could break these fetters? by his own works luther endeavored to gain the grace of god. day and night he tortured and tormented himself with fasting and prayers, with singing and studying, hard bedding, freezing, and vigils, with groanings and weepings. he wanted to take heaven by storm. he could afterward truthfully say: "it is true, i was a pious monk, and if ever a monk could have gained heaven by his monkery i would have gained it. if it had lasted any longer i would have tortured myself to death with vigils, prayers, reading, and other works." the peace of his soul, however, which he had not found in the world he found just as little in the cloister with all his works. later on he describes his condition at that time in the following words: "hangman and devil were in our hearts, and nothing but fear, trembling, horror, and disquiet tortured us day and night." . luther finds comfort. staupitz one day found luther in great distress of spirit and said to him, "ah, you do not know how salutary and necessary such trials are for you; without them nothing good would become of you. for god does not send them to you in vain. you will see that he will use you for great things." at another time luther complained, "o my sin, my sin, my sin!" when staupitz told him, "christ is the forgiveness for real sins. he is a _real_ savior and you are a _real_ sinner. god has sent his own son and delivered him up for us." when, because of great anxiety for his sins, he became sick, an old friar comforted him with these words, "i believe in the forgiveness of sin," and explained these words to mean: "it is not enough that you believe god forgives sins in general, for the devils also believe that. you must believe that your sins, your sins, your sins are forgiven. for man is justified by grace through faith." so, even at that time, a ray of light fell into luther's soul benighted with the darkness of popery, and from this time on his favorite passage remained romans , : "therefore we conclude, that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." chapter ix. luther as teacher. . luther called to the university of wittenberg. after three years spent in this cloister luther was called upon the stage where his battle with popery was to be fought. in elector frederick of saxony had founded the university of wittenberg. he charged staupitz with the selection of learned and able men for this school. one of those recommended for his learning and piety was the well-known augustinian monk luther, who now became professor at wittenberg. as staupitz urged him to remove at once to wittenberg, luther did not even find time to bid farewell to his friends at erfurt. moving caused him little trouble, for a begging friar has few possessions. and thus, on an autumn day of the year , we see the pale and emaciated form of the year old monk traveling the road from erfurt and entering wittenberg by the wooden bridge. he hurried through the long street to the augustinian cloister, where he found shelter and lodging. [illustration: elector frederick the wise.] . luther as professor and preacher. in obedience to his superiors luther at first lectured on philosophy although he would have preferred to teach theology. and this wish of his heart was soon granted. already in he received permission to expound the scriptures to the students. with joyful devotion he gave himself up to the study of the bible and diligently searched for the ground of salvation. and, indeed, he very soon created such a sensation that dr. mellrichstadt exclaimed, "that monk will confound all the doctors, and introduce a new doctrine, and reform the whole roman church, for he devotes himself to the writings of the prophets and apostles, and stands upon the word of jesus christ." thus god had led luther to the scriptures, and he made them his guiding star. he felt that they alone could give him what he sought: truth and peace. staupitz also tried to persuade him to preach, but luther at first lacked courage. finally, however, he consented and preached the word of christ in the little chapel of the cloister. its appearance was very similar to the pictures which the artists paint of the stable at bethlehem in which christ was born. in such a poor, little church that man began to preach who was to thrill countless souls and point the way to true peace. very soon citizens and students gathered in such numbers to hear him that the church could not hold them. he was then called to the large parish church of wittenberg, whose doors were now thrown open to him. here he had abundant opportunity to preach the word of life in his powerful sermons to many thousands of hearers. . luther in rome. by the study of the bible and diligent preparation for his sermons luther steadily grew in the knowledge of divine truth, and yet he was firmly held in the bondage of popery. he still considered the pope the viceregent of christ upon earth. when he was therefore directed to visit rome in the interest of his order it filled his heart with greatest joy. for he hoped by this visit to the holy (?) city to find rest and comfort for his conscience. he had to make the journey on foot, and he took the pilgrim staff in hand, and together with a companion started out for rome. they had no need of money, for shelter and lodging they found in the cloisters by the way. but luther did not enjoy the journey, for the words kept ringing in his ears: "the just shall live by his faith." after a long journey through beautiful landscapes the way finally wound about a hillock, and before the eyes of the german monks lay the roman plain where, on the banks of the tiber, appeared the resplendent houses, churches, and fortresses of the city of rome. how his heart must have leaped when, in the radiant glow of the evening sun, the city lay before him! he prostrated himself upon the ground, lifted his hands, and exclaimed, "hail, holy rome! thrice holy because of the martyrs' blood that was shed in thee!"--in rome luther devoutly sought to satisfy the cravings of his heart. with what sincerity he went about this we see from his own words: "in rome i was also such a crazy saint. i ran through all churches and caverns, and believed every stinking lie that had been fabricated there. i even regretted at the time that my father and mother were still living, for i would have been so glad to have redeemed them from purgatory with my masses and other precious works and prayers." how revolting it must have been for him to see the priests read mass with such levity and get through hurry-skurry (_rips-raps_), as if they were giving a puppet show! luther relates: "before i reached the gospel the priest beside me had finished his mass and called to me, 'hurry up! come away! give the child back to its mother!'" so it happened that his faith in rome began to waver more and more, and god again and again led him there where true comfort can be found. the following is an example. on the place of st. john's there was a flight of stairs, called pilate's staircase, which was said to be the same on which our savior went up and down before the palace of pontius pilate at jerusalem. now, while luther was crawling up these steps, hoping in this way to reconcile god and atone for his sins, it seemed to him as if a voice of thunder was crying in his ears, "the just shall live by his faith!" thus this passage more and more became the light which revealed to him the true way to heaven. this was his opinion of the so-called holy city: "no one believes what villainy and outrageous sins and vices are practiced at rome. you can convince no one that such great abominations occur there, if he has not seen and heard and experienced it himself." thus luther learned to know popery itself in rome, and was, therefore, the better qualified to testify against it later on. he said: "i would not for a thousand florins have missed seeing rome, for then i would always fear that i were wronging the pope and doing him an injustice; but now we speak that which we have seen." . luther is made doctor of divinity. after his return to wittenberg luther took up his work with renewed diligence. one day, while sitting with staupitz under the great pear tree in the cloister garden, his superior took his hand and said, "brother martin, i and all the brethren have concluded that you ought to become doctor of divinity." luther was frightened and excused himself because of his youth, his need of further study, and, also, because of his weak and sickly body, and begged him to select a man more qualified than he was. but when his paternal friend continued to persuade him, he said, "doctor staupitz, you will take my life; i will not stand it three months." to this prophecy of approaching death staupitz playfully remarked, "in god's name! our lord has important business on hand; he needs able men also in heaven. now, if you die you must be his councilor up there." finally, luther submitted to the will of his superior and, on the th of october, , dr. carlstadt with great solemnity bestowed upon him the degree of doctor of divinity. how important this was luther himself points out when he says: "i, doctor martin, have been called and forced to become a doctor without my choice, purely from obedience. i had to accept the degree of doctor _and to swear and vow allegiance to my beloved holy bible, to preach it faithfully and purely_." luther, later on, often comforted himself with this vow, when the devil and the world sought to terrify him because he had created such a disturbance in christendom. luther now devoted himself entirely to the study of the whole bible, and by the power of the holy spirit he soon learned to distinguish between the law and the gospel. and it was only now that he clearly and fully understood the passage: "the just shall live by his faith." with great power he now confuted the error that man could merit forgiveness of sins by his own good works, and be justified before god by his own piety and civil righteousness. on the contrary, he clearly and pointedly showed that our sins are forgiven without any merit of our own, for christ's sake only, and that we accept this gift by faith alone. he proved that scriptures alone can teach us to believe right, to live a christian life, and to die a blessed death. thus the light of the gospel grew brighter and brighter in wittenberg, and, after the long night and darkness, the eyes of many were opened. the beautiful close of a letter which luther wrote in to an augustinian monk is a proof of the clear knowledge, which he already had at that time, of eternal and saving truth. it reads: "my dear brother, learn to know christ, the crucified; learn to sing to him; and, despairing of thyself, say, 'thou, lord jesus christ, art my righteousness, but i am thy sin. thou hast taken upon thyself what is mine, and hast given me what is thine.' meditate devoutly upon this love of his, and thou wilt draw from it the sweetest comfort. for if we could gain peace of conscience by our own works and sufferings, why did he die? therefore thou wilt find peace in no other way but by confidently despairing of thyself and thy works, and trusting in him." chapter x. luther the reformer. [illustration: john tetzel selling indulgences.] . papal indulgences. at that time the papal chair was occupied by leo x. what this pope believed we may gather from his words addressed to one of his bishops. he exclaimed, "what an immense sum have we made out of this fable about christ!" luther relates this of him: "he would amuse himself by having two clowns dispute before his table on the immortality of the soul. the one took the positive, the other the negative side of this question. the pope said to him who defended the proposition, 'although you have adduced good reasons and arguments, yet i agree with him who is of the opinion that we die like the beasts; for your doctrine makes us melancholy and sad, but his gives us peace of mind!'" in order to raise the necessary funds for his pleasures and dissipations he published a general indulgence, pretending that he needed money to complete the building of st. peter's at rome. he commissioned archbishop albert of mayence to sell these indulgences in germany. this dignitary was also excessively fond of the pomp and pleasures of life. he was to receive one-half the receipts of these indulgences. albert, again, engaged monks who were to travel about germany and sell the papal pardons. chief among these pardon peddlers was john tetzel. he was a most impudent fellow who, because of his adulterous life, had at one time been condemned to be drowned in a sack. for his services he received florins, together with traveling expenses for himself and his servants, and provender for three horses. these papal indulgences were held in high esteem by the people, wherefore tetzel was everywhere given a pompous reception. whenever he entered a town the papal bull was carried before him upon a gilded cloth. all the priests, monks, councilmen, schoolteachers, scholars, men, and women went out in procession with candles, flags, and songs to meet him. the bells were tolled, the organs sounded, and tetzel was accompanied into the church, where a red cross was erected bearing the pope's coat of arms. in short, god himself could not have been given a grander reception. once in church, tetzel eloquently extolled the miraculous power of the papal indulgences. he preached: "whoever buys a pardon receives not only the forgiveness of his sins, but shall also escape all punishment in this life and in purgatory." the forgiveness for sacrilege and perjury was sold for ducats, adultery and witchcraft cost two. in st. annaberg he promised the poor miners, if they would freely buy his indulgence the mountains round about the city would become pure silver. the pope, he claimed, had more power than all the apostles and saints, even more than the virgin mary herself; for all of these were under christ, while the pope was equal to christ. the red cross with the papal arms erected in church was declared to be as saving as the cross of christ. tetzel claimed to have saved more souls with his indulgences than peter with his sermons. he had a little rhyme which ran: "as soon as the money rings in my chest, from purgatory the soul finds rest." furthermore, he proclaimed that the grace offered by indulgences is the same grace by which man is reconciled with god. according to his teaching contrition, sorrow, or repentance for sin were unnecessary if his indulgences were bought. . consequences of this pardon-mongery. after tetzel had carried on his godless traffic at many places he also came to jueterbock, in the vicinity of wittenberg. thither the people hurried from the whole neighborhood, and even from wittenberg they came in crowds to buy indulgences. luther relates: "at that time i was preacher here in the cloister, a young doctor, full of fire and handy at the scriptures. now, when great multitudes ran from wittenberg to buy indulgences at jueterbock and zerbst, i began to preach very moderately that something better could be done than buying indulgences; that he who repents receives forgiveness of sins, gained by christ's own sacrifice and blood, and offered from pure grace, without money, and sold for nothing." and when some of luther's parishioners stubbornly declared that they would not desist from usury, adultery, and other sins, nor promise sincere repentance and improvement, he refused to absolve them. when they appealed to the indulgences which they had bought from tetzel, luther answered them: "except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish," luke , . he now addressed an imploring petition to albert of mayence and other bishops, to put a stop to tetzel's blasphemous doings, but met with no success. tetzel himself threatened to accuse luther of heresy, and built a pile of fagots on which, he said, all those should be burned who spoke against his indulgences. [illustration: luther nailing his ninety-five theses to the castle church of wittenberg.] . the ninety-five theses. it was on the st of october, , when the bells ringing from the steeple of the castle church at wittenberg were calling the multitude into the house of god. the crowds were gathering in the long street, awaiting the beginning of the service which usually preceded the festival of church dedication which occurred on all saints' day. suddenly a man hurriedly pressed through the waiting multitude; lean and lank was his body, and pale his countenance, but his eyes beamed with life and fire. he stepped up to the door of the castle church, drew a paper from his dark monk's cowl, and with vigorous blows of the hammer nailed it to the church door. at first his action was noticed only by those standing near by. when, however, one of the bystanders read the superscription which, translated into english, reads: "disputation concerning the power of indulgences. out of love for the truth and with a sincere desire to bring it to light, the following propositions will be discussed at wittenberg, the reverend father martin luther presiding. those who cannot discuss the subject with us orally may do so in writing. in the name of our lord jesus christ. amen!"--then the cry was heard: "up there! read to us the tidings of the wonderful document." several of the theses. . our lord and master jesus christ in saying: "repent ye," etc., intended that the whole life of his believers should be repentance. . those who believe that through letters of pardon they may be sure of their salvation will go to hell, together with their teachers. . every christian who truly repents of his sin has complete remission of all pain and guilt, and it is his without any letters of pardon. . every true christian, living or dead, partakes of all the benefits of christ and of the church. god gives him this without letters of pardon. . the true treasure of the church is the holy gospel of the glory and grace of god. . the effects of the theses. the action of the augustinian monk created everywhere the greatest excitement among the people. luther's theses spread with a rapidity truly marvelous for that time. in fourteen days they had passed through all germany, and in four weeks through all christendom. verily, it seemed as if the angels themselves had been the messengers. the theses were translated into other languages, and after four years a pilgrim bought them in jerusalem. like distant rolling thunder the mighty sentences echoed out into the lands and announced to rome the storm that was brewing in germany against popery. luther had no idea that god had destined them to accomplish such great things. for innumerable souls they were as the sun rising after a long and anxious night. they rejoiced as we rejoice at the light of day; for they saw that in the light of this doctrine they could attain to that peace with god and with their conscience which they had sought in vain with painful toiling in the commandments of the roman church. in the name of these souls old doctor fleck exclaimed, "aha! he'll do it! he is come for whom we have waited so long!" another confessed, "the time has come when the darkness in churches and schools will be dispelled." and another exulted, "praise god, now they have found a man who will give them so much toil and trouble that they will let this poor man depart in peace." but, of course, there were also timid souls who were filled with anxious concern for luther. the renowned dr. kranz, for instance, in hamburg, cried out, "go to your cell, dear brother, and pray, 'lord, have mercy upon me!'" and an old low-german clergyman said, "my dear brother martin, if you can storm and annihilate purgatory and popish huckstering, then you are indeed a great man!" but luther, full of joyous courage and faith, replied to all such timid souls, "dear fathers, if the work is not begun in god's name, it will soon come to naught; but if it is begun in his name let him take care of it." chapter xi. luther the mighty warrior. [illustration: luther before cajetan.] . luther before cajetan in augsburg. pope leo x at first treated the affair with contempt, thinking that the quarrel would soon die out. he once said, "brother martin has a fine head, and the whole dispute is nothing else than an envious quarrel of the monks." at another time he said, "a drunken german has written these theses; when he sobers up he will think differently of the matter." but when he noticed that his authority was endangered, because many pious souls became attached to the true doctrine, he summoned luther to appear within sixty days in rome, and give an account of his heresy. if luther had obeyed, he would hardly have escaped death or the dungeon, for everyone knew that rome was like the lion's cave into which many prints of feet entered, but from which none returned. but under the merciful guidance of god elector frederick the wise so arranged matters that luther's case was tried in germany. for this purpose the pope sent cardinal cajetan to augsburg, and in spite of all warnings luther also boldly repaired to that city. in weimar a monk said to him. "o my dear doctor, i fear that you will not be able to maintain your case before them, and they will burn you at the stake." luther answered, "they may do it with nettles; but fire is too hot!" when luther finally arrived in augsburg, weary and worn, he would have called upon the cardinal immediately, but to this his friends were opposed; they endeavored to obtain for him, first of all, safe-conduct from the emperor. but three days passed before he received it. in the meantime the servants of the cardinal came and said, "the cardinal offers you every favor. what do you fear? he is a very kind father." but another whispered in his ear, "don't believe it, he never keeps his promise." the third day an emissary, by the name of urban, came to luther and asked him why he did not come to the cardinal who was waiting for him so graciously. luther told him that he was following the advice of upright men who were all of the opinion that he should not go there without the imperial safe-conduct. evidently vexed at this reply, urban asked, "do you think that the elector will go to war on your account?" luther answered, "i do not ask that at all." urban: "where do you intend to stay then?" luther: "beneath the heavens!" urban: "what would you do if you had the pope and the cardinals in your power?" luther: "i would show them every mark of respect!" when the safe-conduct finally arrived luther at once repaired to the cardinal, who abruptly demanded that he recant his errors. but luther declared, "i cannot recant, i cannot depart from the scriptures." after lengthy negotiations cajetan sprang up in anger and said, "go, and let me not see you again, unless you recant!" to luther's friends the cardinal said, "i do not wish to dispute with that beast any more, for he has deep eyes and strange ideas in his head." luther, however, wrote to wittenberg: "the cardinal is a poor theologian or christian, and as apt at divinity as an ass is at music." on the st of october luther returned safely to wittenberg. . luther before miltitz. rome would now have preferred to excommunicate luther, but for good reasons it did not wish to offend the elector, who was determined not to allow his professor to be condemned without proper trial and refutation. the pope therefore sent his chamberlain karl von miltitz to the elector to present to him a consecrated golden rose. by this means the elector was to be made willing to assist miltitz in his undertaking. but when the latter arrived in germany he noticed at once that he would have to deal kindly with luther if he wished to retain the good will of the people. at the meeting which occurred in altenburg, miltitz, therefore, treated luther with the greatest consideration: "dear martin, i thought you were an old doctor who sat behind the stove full of crotchety notions. but i see that you are a young and vigorous man. besides, you have a large following, for on my journey i made inquiries to discover what the people thought of you, and i noticed so much that where there is one on the pope's side there are three on yours against the pope. if i had an army of , men i would not undertake to carry you out of germany!" with tears he begged luther to help in restoring peace. luther consented to drop the controversy if his opponents would do the same. after supping together they parted on the best of terms, miltitz even embracing and kissing luther. later on luther saw through the deceit of the roman and called his kiss a judas kiss and his tears crocodile tears; for it was only his fear of luther's following that prevented him from executing his original plan of carrying luther to rome in chains. . luther and dr. eck in leipzig. dr. eck, a violent opponent of luther, became involved in a dispute with dr. carlstadt on several questions of christian doctrine into which luther was also drawn. in these three men gathered at leipzig for a public disputation. at first eck disputed with carlstadt on "free will," and then with luther on the supremacy of the pope. luther proved that the church indeed needed a supreme head, but that christ is this head, and not the pope, and that the power which the pope arrogates to himself conflicts with the scriptures and the history of the first three centuries. as eck could not maintain his position he accused luther of hussite heresy. when luther replied, "my dear doctor, not all of huss' teachings are heretical," eck flew into a passion, and duke george cried out, "the plague take it!" then they debated the question of purgatory, of indulgences, of penances, and the allied doctrines. on the th of june they closed the debate, and luther returned joyfully to wittenberg. eck, who had flattered himself that he would triumph over luther, had to leave in disgrace. [illustration: luther burning the pope's bull.] . the bull of excommunication. soon hereafter eck journeyed to rome and persuaded the pope to threaten luther with excommunication. and indeed! in the papal bull appeared which began: "arise, o lord, judge thy cause, for a boar has broken into thy vineyard, a wild beast is destroying it." luther's doctrine was condemned, and his books were to be burned that his memory might perish among christians. he himself was commanded to recant within sixty days, on pain of excommunication as a heretic. as a dried limb is cut from the trunk of the tree they threatened to cut luther from the body of christ. triumphantly dr. eck carried the bull about in germany. in erfurt the students tore it to pieces and threw it into the water, saying, "it is a _bulla_ (bubble), so let it swim upon the water." luther wrote a pamphlet: "against the bull of the antichrist," and had it distributed broadcast among the people. in it he said: "if the pope does not retract and condemn this bull, and punish dr. eck besides, then no one is to doubt that the pope is god's enemy, christ's persecutor, christendom's destroyer, and the true antichrist." he wrote to a friend: "i am much more courageous now, since i know that the pope has become manifest as the antichrist and the chair of satan." and now when luther even learned that in accordance with this bull his writings had been burned in louvaine, cologne, and also in mayence, his purpose was fixed. on the th of december he had the following announcement published on the blackboard in wittenberg: "let him who is filled with zeal for evangelical truth appear at nine o'clock before the church of the holy cross without the walls of the city. there the ungodly books of the papal statutes will be burned, because the enemies of the gospel have dared to burn the evangelical books of dr. martin luther." when the students read this notice they gathered in crowds in the streets and marched out through the elster gate, followed by many citizens. at nine o'clock luther appeared in company with many professors and scholars, who were carrying books and pamphlets. a pile of fagots was erected. luther with his own hand laid upon it the papal books, and one of the masters set fire to the pile. when the flames leaped up luther's firm hand threw in the papal bull, and he cried, "since thou hast offended the holy one of god, may everlasting fire consume thee!" on the next day he said to his audience: "if with your whole heart you do not renounce the kingdom of the pope you cannot be saved." in a pamphlet he pointed out the reasons which induced him to take this step, and at the same time he called attention to the impious statutes contained in the popish jurisprudence. some of these read: "the pope and his associates are not bound to obey god's commandments. even if the pope were so wicked as to lead innumerable men to hell, yet no one would have the right to reprove him."--on the third of january, , another bull appeared in which the pope excommunicated luther and his adherents, whom he called "lutherans," and issued the interdict against, every place where they resided. chapter xii. luther the staunch confessor. . luther cited to appear at the diet at worms. in charles v held his first diet at worms. among other matters luther's case was also to be discussed. the elector therefore asked luther whether he were willing to appear at the diet. luther answered: "if i am called, i shall, as far as i am concerned, go there sick if i cannot go there well, for i dare not doubt that god calls me when my emperor calls. you may expect everything of me save flight or recantation: i will not flee, much less will i recant. may the lord jesus help me!" on the th of march the imperial herald, caspar sturm, who was to act as luther's safe-conduct, arrived in wittenberg and delivered to him the emperor's citation according to which luther was to appear at the diet within twenty-one days. friends reminded luther of the danger awaiting him, fearing that he would be burned like huss. but luther replied: "and if my enemies kindle a fire between wittenberg and worms reaching up to heaven, yet will i appear in the name of the lord, step into the very mouth and between the great teeth of the devil, confess christ, and let him have full sway." upon the journey luther became dangerously ill; his enemies also tried to keep him away from worms. but filled with faith and courage, he declared: "christ liveth! therefore we will enter worms in spite of the gates of hell, and in defiance of the prince of the power of the air" (eph. , ). and when even his friend spalatin begged him not to go to worms luther answered: "if there were as many devils in worms as there are tiles upon the roofs, yet i would enter it." [illustration: luther's entrance into worms.] . luther's entrance into worms. on the th of april, , the watchman upon the cathedral spire at worms gave the trumpet signal, announcing the approach of a cavalcade. at its head rode the herald wearing the imperial eagle on his breast. luther, dressed in his monk's cowl, followed in an open wagon surrounded by a great number of stately horsemen, some of whom had joined him on the way, while others had gone from worms to meet him. a surging mass of people gathered and pressed about the wagon. in boundless joy men and women, old and young cheered him, and blessed the day on which they had been permitted to see the man who had dared to break the fetters of the pope, and to deliver poor christianity from his bondage. on stepping from his wagon at his lodging place luther said, "god will be with me!" on the same day luther received many of the counts and lords that waited upon him late into the night. the landgrave of hessia also came to see him. upon leaving this nobleman shook his hand and said, "if you are in the right, doctor, may god help you!" the partisans of the pope pressed the emperor to do away with luther and have him executed like huss. but charles said, "a man must keep his promise." luther spent the night in prayer to strengthen himself for the ordeal of appearing before the emperor and the assembled diet. . luther before the diet. early the next morning the marshal of the empire came to luther and delivered to him the imperial order to appear before the diet at four o'clock that afternoon. the decisive hour was drawing nigh in which this faithful witness of jesus christ was to stand before the great and mighty of this earth, to profess a good profession before many witnesses. at the time specified luther was escorted into the council chamber. immense crowds had gathered in the streets. many of them had even climbed on the roofs, in order to see the monk, who, therefore, was forced to take his way through hidden paths, gardens, and sheds, in order to reach the assembly. when entering the hallway the celebrated old general george von frundsberg patted him on the shoulder and said, "monk, monk! you are now upon a road the like of which i and many another captain have never gone in our most desperate encounters; but if you are sincere and sure of your cause go on in the name of god and be of good cheer. god will not forsake you." then the door was opened, and luther stood before the mighty of this earth. perhaps never before had there been such a numerous and august assembly. the council chamber was crowded, and about people had gathered in the vestibules, upon the stairways, and at the windows. [illustration: luther before the emperor and the diet.] the first question put to luther was, whether he acknowledged the books lying upon the bench to be his own, and whether he would retract their contents, or abide by their teachings. luther could not be prepared to answer this question, for the imperial citation had only mentioned a desire to be informed as to his doctrine and books. after luther had examined the title of all of the books he answered the first question in the affirmative. as to the second question, however, whether he would recant, he declared that he could not answer this at once, since it was a matter that concerned faith, salvation, and the word of god, the greatest treasure in heaven and on earth, on which he must be careful not to speak unadvisedly. he therefore asked the emperor to grant him time for reflection. this request was granted, and the herald conducted him back to his lodgings. on thursday, april , he was called again. he had to wait nearly two hours, wedged in the throng, before he was admitted. when he finally entered the lights were already lit and the council chamber brilliantly illuminated. he was now asked whether he would defend his books, or recant. luther replied at length, declaring humbly but with great confidence and firmness that by what he had written and taught in singleness of heart he had sought only the glory of god and the welfare and salvation of christians. he cited the word of christ: "if i have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil," john , , and prayed that they convince and convict him from the writings of the prophets and apostles. if this were done he would at once be ready and willing to retract every error, and be the first to cast his own books into the fire. hereupon the imperial spokesman addressed him in harsh tones and told him that they wished a simple and clear answer, whether or no he would recant. distinctly and plainly luther then replied: "since your imperial majesty desires a clear, simple, and precise answer i will give you one which has neither horns nor teeth: unless i am convinced by the testimony of the holy scriptures, or by patent, clear, and cogent reasons and arguments (for i believe neither the pope nor the councils alone, since it is evident that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), and because the passages adduced and quoted by me have convinced and bound my conscience in god's word, therefore i cannot and will not recant, since it is neither safe nor advisable to do anything against conscience. here i stand; i cannot do otherwise! god help me! amen." about eight o'clock in the evening the session was closed, and two men led luther away. while he was still in the throng duke eric of brunswick sent him a silver flagon of eimbeck beer, with the request that he would refresh himself. luther drank it and said, "as duke eric has now remembered me, so may our lord jesus christ remember him in his last hour." at the same time luther was of good courage. when he arrived at his inn, where many friends were awaiting him, he cried with lifted hands and beaming face, "i am through! i am through!" he also said, "if i had a thousand heads i would rather lose everyone of them than recant." by the courageous and steadfast confession of luther many were won for his cause. the emperor, however, exclaimed, "he will not make a heretic of me!" but when the partisans of the pope tried to persuade the emperor to break his promise of safe-conduct he said with great solemnity, "a man must keep his word, and if faith is not found in all the world it ought to be found with the german emperor." the elector said to spalatin, "o how well martin conducted himself! what a beautiful address he delivered both in german and latin before the emperor and all the estates. to me he appeared almost too bold!" according to an order of the diet several more attempts were made within the following days to induce luther to recant. luther, however, remained steadfast, and again and again requested, "convince me from the scriptures," and appealed to the words of gamaliel: "if this counsel or this work be of men it will come to naught; but if it be of god ye cannot overthrow it." . luther's homeward journey. together with several friends luther, on the th of april, left worms after the emperor had again granted him safe-conduct for twenty-one days. the imperial herald, caspar sturm, accompanied him to friedberg. at this place luther dismissed him with a letter to the emperor in which he returned thanks for the safe-conduct. although the emperor had forbidden it, nevertheless luther preached to large audiences at hersfeld and eisenach. he also visited his relatives in moehra and preached there under a linden tree, near the church. on the th of may he continued his journey, his relatives accompanying him to the castle altenstein. there they separated. after a little while the wagon turned into a narrow pass. suddenly armed horsemen dashed out of the forest, fell upon the wagon, and amid curses and threats commanded the driver to halt, and tore luther from his seat. without molesting the others they threw a mantle upon luther, placed him upon a horse, and led him in zigzag through the forest. it was nearly midnight when the drawbridge of the wartburg fell and the castle received the weary horsemen within its protecting walls. [illustration: luther made prisoner.] . luther under the ban. a presentiment had told elector frederick the wise what would come, and therefore he had sheltered the steadfast confessor from the brewing storm. on the th of may already an imperial order appeared which is known as the edict of worms. by it the ban of the empire was proclaimed against luther and all who would protect him. it declared: "whereas luther, whom we had invited to appear before us at worms, has stubbornly retained his well-known heretical opinions, therefore, with the unanimous consent of the electors, princes, and estates of the empire, we have determined upon the execution of the bull as a remedy against this poisonous pest, and we now command everyone under pain of the imperial ban from the th day of this month of may not to shelter, house, nor give food or drink to aforesaid luther, nor succor him by deed or word, secretly or publicly, with help, adherence, or assistance, but take him prisoner wherever you may find him, and send him to us securely bound. also, to overpower his adherents, abettors, and followers, and to appropriate to yourselves and keep their possessions. luther's poisonous books and writings are to be burned and in every way annihilated." . opinions on luther's disappearance. luther's sudden disappearance caused great excitement everywhere in germany. his friends mourned him as dead, murdered by his enemies. his opponents rejoiced and spread the lie that the devil had carried him off. a roman catholic wrote to the archbishop of mayence: "we now have our wish, we are rid of luther; but the people are so aroused that i fear we will hardly be able to save our lives unless we hunt him with lighted torches and bring him back." the celebrated painter albrecht duerer of nuremberg, who from the beginning had rejoiced at luther's words as the lark rejoices at the golden dawn of day, wrote in his diary: "whether he still lives, or whether they have murdered him, i do not know; he has suffered this for the sake of christian truth, and because he reproved antichristian popery. o god, if luther is dead, who henceforth will purely preach to us the holy gospel?" . luther at the wartburg. while poor christendom mourned and wailed luther sat upon the wartburg securely sheltered against the curses of the pope and the ban of the emperor. for ten months he dwelled there, known as knight george. in order not to be recognized he had to lay aside his monk's cowl, let his beard grow, and don the full dress of a knight. at first he was not even permitted to study, that his books might not betray him. he had to follow the knights and squires out into the forest, over hill and dale, upon the chase, and to gather strawberries. but wherever he went and wherever he stood he thought of his beloved wittenberg and the condition of the church. once at a hunt, when a poor little driven rabbit ran into his sleeve and the hounds came and bit it to death, he said, "just so pope and satan rage, that they may kill the saved souls and frustrate my endeavors." in his quiet retreat he studied holy scriptures, wrote sermons upon the gospels, and translated the new testament into german. chapter xiii. the fanatics and the peasants' war. . disturbances at wittenberg. the sound of the glorious gospel had gone out through all the lands. satan indeed had tried to suppress it in every way, by help of pope, emperor, and learned men, but it had spread only the more. then the devil chose another means to suppress the truth by creating schisms and offenses in luther's own congregation. during luther's absence the augustinian monks at wittenberg had abolished the papal mass and again introduced the right manner of celebrating holy communion. but dr. karlstadt was not satisfied, and, besides, the reformation progressed too slowly for him. he therefore instigated the students to break into the church where the priests were reading mass and drive them and the people out in the most brutal and violent manner. during the christmas holidays they threw the images out of the church and burned them. then they demolished the altars and crucifixes, abolished the candles, liturgy, and ceremonies, and even rejected the use of chalice and paten. without preparation or announcement they went to holy communion, and took the wafers with their own hand. all this they did from sheer presumption, without previously instructing the people nor caring whether the weak were offended. moreover, certain fanatics from zwickau came to wittenberg who boasted that an audible voice of god had called them to preach, and that they held intimate conversation with god, and knew the future. they especially raved against infant baptism, and declared it to be of no avail. they demanded that everyone baptized in his infancy must be baptized again. for this reason these fanatics were also called anabaptists. . luther's return to wittenberg. luther at first tried to allay these disturbances by writings, but in vain. things grew worse. his congregation earnestly entreated him in a letter to come to wittenberg and check further desolation. he decided to leave immediately and announced this fact to his friends in a letter. certain of victory, he wrote: "i do not doubt that without a thrust of sword or drop of blood we will easily quench these two smoking fire brands." thus luther left the castle which was to shelter him against the ban of the pope and the interdict of the emperor, and, contrary to the advice of the elector, appeared again in the arena. in a letter he excused himself to the elector and said: "if we would have the word of god, it must needs be that not only hannas and caiphas rage, but that judas also appear among the apostles, and satan among the sons of god. as to myself, i know that if matters stood at leipzig as they do at wittenberg i would ride into it even though for nine days it rained nothing but duke george's, and each one were nine times more furious than this one. i go to wittenberg protected by one higher than the elector. yes, i would protect your electoral grace more than you can protect me. the sword cannot counsel nor help this cause; god alone must help here, without all human care or aid. therefore, whoever believes most can here afford most protection." . luther's sermons against the fanatics. on the th of march, , luther arrived in wittenberg. for eight days in succession he preached against the prevailing nuisances, opposed the fanaticism of karlstadt powerfully with the word of god, and restored the peace of the church. he told his hearers that they had wanted the fruit of faith, which is love and which patiently bears the weakness of its neighbor, instructs him in meekness, but does not snarl at and insult him. external improvements are very well, but they must be introduced in due order, without tumult or offenses, and not too hastily. again he says: "we must first gain the hearts of the people, which is done by the word of god, by preaching the gospel, and by convincing the people of their errors. in this way the word of god will gain the heart of one man to-day, of another to-morrow. for with his word god takes the heart, and then you have gained the man. the evil will die out and cease of itself." karlstadt now remained quiet for a few years, and the prophets from zwickau had to leave wittenberg. before going they wrote a letter to luther full of abuse and curses. . the origin of the peasants' war. the anabaptists now zealously spread the poison of their fanaticism among the people. karlstadt also began again to proclaim his false doctrines. he maintained, infant baptism is wrong, study is superfluous, every christian is fit to be a pastor, and that christ's body and blood are not essentially present in the lord's supper. at many places such pernicious preaching caused the people to fall away from god's word. their chief spokesman was thomas muenzer. he attacked luther violently and boasted of himself, "the harvest is ripening; i am hired of heaven for a penny a day, and am sharpening my sickle for the reaping." he proclaimed a visible kingdom of god and of christ, the new jerusalem, where all earthly possession should be held in common. he also preached rebellion against the government. to check such disorder luther himself traveled about and preached to the people. but he was only partially successful. in orlamuende the rage of the people against him was so great that he had to flee at once, while some cursed after him, "depart in the name of a thousand devils, and may you break your neck before you get out of the city!" . luther's sermon against the revolting peasants. the storm soon broke over germany. in the flame of rebellion spread through franconia, along the rhine, and almost through all the german states. the peasants, "a wretched people, everybody's drudge, burdened and overloaded with tasks, taxes, tithes, and tributes, but on that account by no means more pious, but a wild, treacherous, uncivilized people," had banded together in a so-called christian union and demanded of the government the granting of certain petitions. some of these were: every congregation is to be permitted to choose its own pastor; serfdom is to be abolished. some of them demanded much more: they wanted one government for the whole german empire and the abolition of the minor princes. luther declared that many of their demands were just and fair, at the same time, however, he told them how terribly they sinned by rebelling. he said: "bad and unjust government excuses neither revolt nor sedition. do not make your christian name a cloak for your impatient, rebellious, and unchristian undertaking. christians do not fight for themselves with the sword and with guns, but with the cross and with suffering, just as their captain christ did not use the sword, but hung upon the cross." and with the same severity luther also reproved the ungodly tyranny of the princes. . the outcome of the peasants' war. the flood of rebellion could no longer be checked. the peasants marched about, robbing, plundering, sacking, and murdering wherever they came, destroying more than castles and many cloisters. upon their enemies they took the most bloody vengeance. in weinsberg they impaled and cruelly tortured knights. now muenzer thought the time had come for him also. he sent letters in every direction: "thomas muenzer, servant of god with the sword of gideon, calls all good christians to his banners, that with him they may strike upon the princes like on an anvil, 'bing-bang!' and not allow their swords to cool from blood." multitudes of the people gathered about him. then luther lifted his mighty voice for the last time, and advised the government to make the ringleaders a last offer of a peaceable compromise, and if this proved fruitless, to draw the sword. the compromise was offered, but in vain. thereupon the princes took up the sword, and the peasants were routed everywhere. the decisive battle was fought at frankenhausen. muenzer encouraged his men to fight valiantly against the tyrants. he cried, "behold, god gives us a sign that he is on our side. see the rainbow! it announces to us the victory! if one of you falls in the front ranks, he will rise again in the rear and fight anew. i will catch all bullets in my sleeve." the battle began. but when the peasants saw that the slain did not rise, and that thomas muenzer caught no bullets in his sleeve, they lost courage and fled. five thousand remained on the field, and three hundred were made prisoners and beheaded. the braggart muenzer was found in an attic of a house in frankenhausen where he had hidden, under a bed. he was dragged out and taken to muehlhausen, where he was tortured and finally beheaded. chapter xiv. the colloquy at marburg. . zwingli. at the same time that luther issued his powerful theses against popery a man lived in switzerland whose eyes had also been opened to the corruption of the church. this was ulrich zwingli, pastor at zurich. he also wished to help the church, but did not abide by the pure word of god. in many things he followed his own reason. assisted by the city council he changed the church service at zurich after his own fashion. the processions were abolished. pictures, crucifixes, and altars were removed from the churches. communion was celebrated in both kinds. the bread was carried about the church upon plates, and the wine in wooden chalices. concerning holy communion zwingli taught that the breaking and eating of the bread was a symbolic action. he maintained that the words of christ, "this is my body," meant nothing but, "this represents my body." of baptism he likewise taught erroneously. here also he followed his reason. he would not admit that the person baptized was in any way affected by baptism; baptism was to him only an external sign of membership among god's people. he taught many strange things concerning christ's work of redemption, and called original sin a mere infirmity of human nature. of these false doctrines the one concerning holy communion spread rapidly and found many adherents. earnestly and fervently luther waged war against this error both in his sermons and in his writings. but the zwinglians stubbornly adhered to their error and pursued their own way. . the colloquy at marburg. in landgrave philip of hesse succeeded in arranging a colloquy between the lutherans and the zwinglians. it occurred on the first, second, and third of october, at marburg. before the doctrine of the lord's supper was taken up several other articles of faith were discussed. in these points the zwinglians accepted instruction and counsel. when, finally, the doctrine of the lord's supper came to be discussed luther took a piece of chalk from his pocket and wrote these words upon the table, "this is my body." these words were his sure, firm ground, and upon it he determined to stand unmoved. he demanded of his opponents to give all glory to god, and to believe the pure, simple words of the lord. however, they clung to their opinion and cited especially john , , where christ says: "the flesh profiteth nothing." clearly and unmistakably luther proved to them that in this passage christ does not speak of his _own_, but of _our_ flesh. it would also be an impious assertion, to say that christ's flesh profiteth nothing. then they maintained: "a body cannot at the same time be present at two places; now the body of christ sitteth in heaven, at the right hand of the father, consequently it could not be present, upon earth in the sacrament." luther replied: "christ has assumed the human nature, which, therefore, according to the scriptures, partakes of the divine attributes and glory. wherefore the human nature of christ is omnipresent; hence his body and blood is capable of being present in holy communion." when luther saw that his opponents grew more stubborn in their opinion he closed the colloquy on his part. with the words, "you have a different spirit from ours," he refused the hand of fellowship offered him by zwingli. already in zwingli perished in the battle of kappel. the false doctrines, however, which he had spread have remained to this day the doctrines of the reformed church. chapter xv. the augsburg confession. . the drafting of the confession. in charles v assembled a diet at augsburg. contrary to common expectation his proclamation was very friendly, saying that in this assembly all animosity was to be put aside and everyone's views were to be heard in all love and kindness. elector john the steadfast thereupon commissioned his theologians to draw up a brief and clear summary of the principal doctrines of evangelical truth, that he and his party might be ready to confess their faith and their hope in a clear and unmistakable manner. the theologians carried out this order and drew up a document upon the basis of articles composed by luther at an earlier date. in april of elector john, together with luther, melanchthon, spalatin, jonas, and agricola, started off for augsburg to fight a good fight. as the ban of the empire was still in force against luther, and the city of augsburg had protested against his coming, the elector had him taken to the fortress coburg, on the morning of the d of april, that, in case of necessity, he might be near at hand. luther complied, although very unwillingly. in order not to expose the elector to any danger the theologians requested him also to remain away, and offered to go to augsburg alone and give an account of their teachings. but the elector answered courageously, "god forbid that i should be excluded from your company. i will confess my lord christ with you." catholic estates, both spiritual and temporal lords, among them dr. eck and faber, were traveling the same road. in augsburg melanchthon again set to work, and in agreement with luther and the other confessors completed the writing out of the confession. he then sent a copy of it to luther at coburg for inspection. when returning it luther wrote: "i am well pleased with it, and cannot see that i could improve or change it; nor would it be proper for me to attempt this, for i cannot step so softly and gently. christ, our lord, grant that it may bring forth rich abundance of precious fruit. that is our hope and prayer. amen." this is the origin of the confession which is known as the augsburg confession. it is a pure, correct, and irrefutable confession of the divine truths of holy scripture. therefore it is also the holy banner around which all true lutherans everywhere gather, and to this day the lutheran church acknowledges only those as its members who accept the unaltered augsburg confession in all its articles, without any exception. . heroism of the lutheran princes. slowly the emperor finally approached the city of augsburg where the assembled estates were expectantly waiting for him. in great pomp he entered the city on the th of june, followed by his brother ferdinand and many other princes. with amazement he at once noticed how great the contrast had grown in the nine years between the catholics and the protestants. for when at the entrance of the emperor the papal legate blessed the princes and all others kneeled down in the customary fashion the princes of saxony and hesse remained standing. and when, on the same evening, the emperor demanded of the evangelical princes that on the following day they should take part in the great corpus christi procession they declared that by their participation they were not minded to encourage such human ordinances which were evidently contrary to the word of god and the command of christ. upon this occasion margrave george of brandenburg uttered these heroic words, "rather than deny my god and his gospel i would kneel here before your imperial majesty and have my head cut from my body." the emperor graciously replied, "dear prince, not head off! not head off!" . signing the confession. so the ever memorable day, the th of june, approached, on which the little band of lutheran confessors were to confess the lord christ before the emperor and the diet. on the evening before elector john invited his brethren in the faith to his lodgings. at the upper end of a long table sat the elector. he arose, and the rest followed him. in his hand was a roll of manuscript. he seized a pen and subscribed his name with a firm hand. in doing so he said, "may almighty god grant us his grace continually that all may redound to his glory and praise." in fervent words he admonished those present to stand firm, saying, "all counsels that are against god must fail, and the good cause will, without doubt, finally triumph." now the others also signed the confession. after the prince of anhalt, a right chivalrous lord, had signed he cried with flashing eyes, "i have been in many a fray to please others, why should i not saddle my horse, if it is necessary, in honor of my lord and savior, and, sacrificing life and limb, hurry into heavenly life to receive the eternal crown of glory?" the meeting closed with a fervent prayer for blessing and success on the coming day. luther, in the mean time, remained at coburg, but in spirit he participated in the holy cause at augsburg. every day he spent three hours in prayer for the victory of the beloved gospel. he was continually crying to god to preserve the brethren in true faith and sound doctrine. in hours of anxiety and trial he wrote on the walls of his room with his own hands the precious words of the th psalm: "i shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the lord." he addressed many consoling letters to the confessors in which he admonished them to constancy. at this time there lived in his own heart that trust in god which he had expressed in his heroic song, "a mighty fortress is our god." [illustration: reading the augsburg confession.] . submittal and reception of the confession. on saturday, the th of june, , at o'clock in the afternoon, the diet assembled in the episcopal palace, where the confession was to be read. the german emperor presided, and the highest dignitaries of the roman empire had gathered to hear the confession. then the evangelical confessors arose cheerfully, and in their name the two electoral chancellors, dr. brueck and dr. baier, stepped into the center of the room, the first with a latin, the latter with a german copy of the confession. when the emperor demanded that the latin copy should be read, elector john replied, "upon german ground and soil it is but fair to read and hear the german tongue." the emperor permitted it. and now dr. baier began to read in a loud and audible voice, so that even the assembled multitude without in the courtyard could plainly understand every word of the confession. everyone was deeply touched by it. the learned catholic bishop of augsburg publicly admitted, "everything that was read is the pure, unadulterated, undeniable truth." duke william of bavaria pressed the hand of elector john in a friendly manner and said to dr. eck, who was standing close by, "i have been told something entirely different of luther's doctrine than i have now heard from their confession. you have also assured me that their doctrine could be refuted." eck replied, "i would undertake to refute it with the fathers, but not with the scriptures." thereupon the duke rejoined, "i understand, then, that the lutherans sit entrenched in the scriptures, and we are on the outside." luther wrote to one of his friends: "you have confessed christ and offered peace. you have worthily engaged in the holy work of god as becometh the saints. now for once rejoice in the lord also and be glad, ye righteous. look up and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh." spalatin said that such a confession had not been made since the world exists. mathesius also aptly testifies, "there has not been a greater and higher work and a more glorious testimony since the days of the apostles than this at augsburg before the whole roman empire." very soon the confession was translated in many different languages and spread in every land. thereby many received true information on the lutheran doctrine, recognized its entire agreement with holy scriptures and with the doctrine of the apostolic church, and joyfully accepted it as their own. at the emperor's command the papal theologians at once drew up a paper in which they tried to refute the augsburg confession. this document, called confutation, proved to be such a miserable failure that it had to be returned for revision. melanchthon then wrote an excellent defense of the confession, the apology, which, however, the emperor would neither receive nor permit to be read. he simply declared the case to be closed, and said, "if the evangelical princes will not submit, then i, the protector of the roman church, am not disposed to permit a schism of the church in germany." before the close of the diet he issued a severe edict which granted the evangelicals six months to consider matters and commanded them, before the expiration of this time, to return to the catholic church. thereupon the faithful confessors declared that, because they had not received a thorough refutation from the word of god, they were determined to abide by the faith of the prophets and apostles, and everything else they would commend to the gracious will of god. when taking leave of the emperor, elector john, rightly called the "steadfast," spoke the memorable words, "i am sure that the doctrine contained in the confession will stand even against the gates of hell." the emperor answered, "uncle, uncle, i did not expect to hear such words from your grace. you will lose your electoral crown and your life, and your subjects will perish, together with their women and children." chapter xvi. bible, catechism, and hymnbook. . bible. among the many priceless treasures for which all christendom owes thanks, under god, to luther, the translation of the bible into german is one of the grandest and one of the most glorious. in the churches of that time latin bibles were used exclusively. the people, however, were not acquainted with them; for, in the first place, laymen could not read them, and, in the second place, they were forbidden to read the bible. in addition to this, the bibles of that time were far too expensive. an ordinary latin bible cost florins, and one nicely written out by monks even brought dollars. it is true, there were german translations of the bible even before luther, but they were so inexact, and composed in such poor german, that the people could not use them. and yet, if every christian was to read and learn the gospel which luther preached and proclaimed; if he was to convince himself from the scriptures of the errors of popery; if he was effectively to arm himself against them; and if the bible was to make him wise unto salvation, then he had to have it in his own language. luther was long since convinced of this and had, therefore, already translated the seven penitential psalms. when, in , the wartburg sheltered him against his enemies, he, for the first, undertook the translation of the new testament. he wrote: "till easter i will remain here in seclusion. by that time i will translate the postil and new testament into the people's language. that is demanded by our friends." after completing the work he wrote to spalatin: "in my patmos i had translated not only the gospel according to john, but the entire new testament. now we are at it to polish the whole, philip and i; god willing, it will prove a fine work." on the st of september, , it appeared and sold at - / florins. although the book was proscribed in many countries, the entire first edition was sold in a few weeks. in the same year several new editions had to be issued. then luther, with his friends, entered upon the translation of the whole bible. it was a most difficult task. luther said of it: "it frequently happened that we searched and inquired fourteen days, aye, three or four weeks for a single word, and yet, at times, did not find it." but god permitted him to complete the great work upon which, amid countless battles and labors, his heart had been set for many years. in the complete bible appeared. [illustration: the translation of the bible.] great was the joy with which luther's translation was received at that time. melanchthon exclaimed, "the german bible is one of the greatest miracles which god has worked through dr. martin luther before the end of the world." and mathesius added, "for to an attentive bible-reader it seems indeed as if the holy spirit had spoken through the mouth of the prophets and the apostles in our german language." now many thousand thirsting souls could drink as often as they wished from that fountain closed so long, and which offers pure, sweet, and truly satisfying water. and they did it. cochlaeus, a violent opponent of luther, writes: "luther's new testament has been so multiplied by the printers and scattered in such numbers that even tailors and shoemakers, aye, even women and the simple who had learned to read only the german on ginger cakes, read it with intense longing. many carried it about with them and learned it by heart, so that, in a few months, they arrogantly began to dispute with priests and monks on the faith and the gospel. indeed, even poor women were found who engaged with learned doctors in a debate, and thus it happened that in such conversations lutheran laymen could extemporaneously quote more bible passages than the monks and priests." . catechism. another treasure which god gave to christianity through luther is the small catechism. in order to inform himself on the condition of the churches and schools luther had early urged the elector to order a general visitation of the churches. this visitation was held with loving heart, but with open eyes, from to . in the vicinity of wittenberg luther and melanchthon traveled from city to city, from village to village, and inspected churches and schools. they listened to the preachers and examined the church members. they found things in a sad condition. the people and the pastors lived in deep spiritual ignorance, for under the rule of the pope they had received no proper instruction in religion. in a village near torgau the old pastor could scarcely recite the lord's prayer and the creed; in another place the peasants did not know a single prayer and even refused to learn the lord's prayer. luther wrote: "alas, what manifold misery i beheld! the common people, especially in the villages, know nothing at all of christian doctrine; and many pastors are quite unfit and incompetent to teach. yet, all are called christians, have been baptized, and enjoy the use of the sacraments--although they know neither the lord's prayer nor the creed nor the ten commandments, and live like the poor brutes and irrational swine." the following example illustrates how patiently luther instructed such people. when, at one time, he was examining the poor peasants on the christian creed one of them, who had recited the first article, being asked the meaning of "almighty," answered, "i don't know!" luther then said, "you are right, my dear man, i and all the doctors do not know what god's power and omnipotence is; but only believe that god is your dear and faithful father who will, can, and knows how to help you and your wife and children in every need." such misery induced luther, in , to write the small catechism for the instruction of poor christendom. he himself says: "the deplorable destitution which i recently observed during a visitation of the churches has impelled and constrained me to prepare this catechism or 'christian doctrine' in such a small and simple form." a learned doctor writes of this excellent little book: "the small catechism is the true layman-bible, which comprises the whole contents of christian doctrine which every christian must know for his salvation." of all books in the world perhaps no other can be found that teaches the whole counsel of god for our salvation in such brief form and in such clear and pointed language. a truly popular book, it has cultivated the right understanding of the gospel among the common people and unto this day proved of inestimable blessing. very early luther already could boast of the fruits of his work. in the following year he wrote to the elector: "how gracious is the merciful god in granting such power and fruit to his word in your country. you have in your country the very best and most able pastors and preachers, such as you can find in no other country of the world, who live so faithfully, piously, and peaceably. tender youth, boys and girls, are growing up so well instructed in the catechism and the scriptures, that it makes me feel good to see how young lads and little girls can now pray, believe, and speak better of god and of christ than formerly all institutes, cloisters, and schools." . hymns. another precious gift for which all christians should thank luther is the collection of his incomparable hymns and songs, so childlike and devout, so simple and yet so powerful. when introducing the lutheran order of worship luther took great pains that not only the pastors and choristers, but also the congregations might sing their hymns to god in heaven in their own mother's tongue. however, there were very few german hymns at that time fit to be used in divine worship. luther, therefore, also undertook this work, and, in , the first hymnbook appeared. it contained eight hymns set to music, four of which luther had composed. the first evangelical church-hymn which luther wrote was that glorious song, "dear christians, one and all, rejoice." in it, from his own experience, he describes human misery, and then glorifies god's work of salvation. then followed, "o god of heaven, look down and see," and, "out of the depths i cry to thee." both of these hymns are cries for help out of the depths of human misery in which the congregation and every penitent christian raises his voice to god on high and is heard. later on appeared hymns for the festive seasons: "from heaven above to earth i come;" "all praise to jesus' hallowed name;" "in death's strong grasp the savior lay;" "now do we pray god the holy ghost." then, among many more: "though in the midst of life we be;" "in peace and joy i now depart." above all others towers his hymn of battle and triumph, "a mighty fortress is our god." especially powerful was the effect produced by luther's hymns in those days. the people never wearied of singing them, and in very many places the gospel was introduced by the triumphant power of the lutheran hymns intonated by pious church members. the opponents complained, "the people sing themselves into this heretical church; luther's hymns have misled more souls than all his writings and sermons." in brunswick a priest complained to the duke that lutheran hymns were sung even in the court's chapel. the duke, though also very bitter against luther, asked, "what kind of hymns are they? how do they read?" the priest answered, "your grace, one of them is, 'may god bestow on us his grace,'" whereupon the duke rejoined, "why, is the devil to bestow his grace upon us? who is to be gracious to us if not god?" concerning the effect of luther's hymns a friend writes: "i do not doubt that by the one little hymn of luther, 'dear christians, one and all, rejoice,' many hundred christians have received faith who never before heard the name of luther; but the noble, dear words of this man so won their hearts that they had to accept the truth." chapter xvii. luther's family life. [illustration: luther's marriage with katharine of bora.] . luther enters holy matrimony. according to the pope's doctrine all so-called religious, like the monks, nuns, and priests, dare not marry. luther, on the contrary, proved from the word of god that this doctrine is false, that matrimony is god's institution and honorable in all men. 'tis true, of himself he declared: "i have no disposition to marry, because i may daily expect death as a heretic." but many of his friends urgently requested him for the sake of strengthening many weak hearts also to enter holy matrimony and thus confirm his doctrine by his action. his father also dearly wished to see his son marry a pious wife. by god's help luther was soon firmly resolved by his own action to testify before the world his own and the doctrine of holy scriptures that matrimony is pleasing to god. he was of good courage and exclaimed, "to spite the devil and to please my old father i will marry my kate before i die." and later on he said, "by my own example i wished to confirm what i had taught, and because many were so timid although the gospel shone so brightly god willed it and accomplished it." on the th of june, , luther invited his friends bugenhagen, justus jonas, apel, and the painter lucas cranach, together with the latter's wife, to supper, and in their presence he entered holy matrimony with katharine of bora. justus jonas informed spalatin of this joyous occurrence in these words: "luther has married katharine of bora; yesterday i was present at the marriage; my soul was so deeply moved at the spectacle that i could not retain my tears. since it is now done and god has willed it i sincerely wish this excellent and true man and dear father in the lord all happiness. god is wonderful in his works and in his counsels." . training of the children. luther's marriage with katharine of bora was blessed with six children, who were raised severely but piously. luther enjoyed their company and delighted to watch them at play. when little martin once played with a doll and in prattling said it was his bride luther remarked, "so sincere and without wickedness and hypocrisy we would have been in paradise. therefore children are the loveliest starlings and dearest little chatterboxes--they do and speak everything naturally and in the simplicity of their hearts." when he saw the boys, as children will do, quarrel and then again make peace, he said, "dear lord, how pleasing to thee is such life and play of the children." when at one time they all with beaming eyes and glad expectation stood about the table on which the mother had placed peaches and other fruit, he enjoyed the picture and said, "whoever wishes to see the picture of one rejoicing in hope, has here a true portrait. o that we could look forward to judgment day with such joyous hope." when luther, at another time, visited melanchthon, he found him in his study surrounded by his family. he was well pleased with this and said, "dear brother philip, i praise you for finding things with you as they are with me at home, wife and children in your company. i have also given my little johnnie a ride upon my knees to-day and carried my little magdalene about upon her pillow and pressed her to my heart." when luther returned home from a journey he never missed bringing something along for his children. at the same time he was very strict. at one time he would not allow his son john to come into his presence for three days, until he begged pardon for an offense. and when his mother interceded for him luther said, "i would rather have a dead than a spoiled son." at another time he said, "i do not wish my son john treated with too much leniency: he must be punished and held to strict account." he was diligent in teaching his older children the catechism and prayed with them the ten commandments, the creed, and the lord's prayer. how lovely he could speak with his children is shown by the following letter, which he wrote when he was at coburg to his little son john, who was then four years of age: "grace and peace in christ. my dear little son:--i am very glad to know that you learn your lessons well, and love to say your prayers. keep on doing so, my little boy, and when i come home i will bring you something pretty from the fair. i know a beautiful garden, where there are a great many children in fine little coats, and they go under the trees and gather beautiful apples and pears, cherries and plums; they sing and run about, and are as happy as they can be. sometimes they ride about on nice little ponies, with golden bridles and silver saddles. i asked the man whose garden it is, 'what little children are these?' and he told me, 'they are little children who love to pray and learn, and are good.' then i said, 'my dear sir, i have a little boy at home; his name is johnny luther; would you let him come into the garden too, to eat some of these nice apples and pears, and ride on these fine little ponies, and play with these children?' the man said, 'if he loves to say his prayers, and learn his lesson, and is a good boy, he may come. and philip and jocelin may come too; and when they are all together, they can play upon the fife and drum and lute and all kinds of instruments, and skip about and shoot with little crossbows.' he then showed me a beautiful mossy place in the middle of the garden, for them to skip about in, with a great many golden fifes, and drums, and silver crossbows. the children had not yet had their dinner, and i could not wait to see them play, but i said to the man, 'my dear sir, i will go away and write all about it to my little son, john, and tell him to be fond of saying his prayers, and learn well, and be good, so that he may come into the garden; but he has an aunt, lena, whom he must bring along with him.' the man said, 'very well, go write to him.' now, my dear little son, learn to love your lessons, and to say your prayers, and tell philip and jocelin to do so too, that you may all come to the garden. may god bless you. give aunt lena my love, and kiss her for me. a. d. . your dear father, martin luther." [illustration: luther at the coffin of his daughter magdalene.] . the death of magdalene. how dearly luther loved his children we can see from his pious and touching conduct during the sickness and death of his little daughter magdalene. in the beginning of september, , being then in her fourteenth year, she became ill. when she was now sick unto death she longed very much for her brother john whom she loved most dearly. he was then at school at torgau. luther at once sent a wagon there and wrote to rector krodel that he should send john home for a few days. john found his sister still alive. the disease tortured the poor child for fourteen more days, and her father suffered very much with her. when the hope of recovery vanished more and more, luther prayed, "lord, i love, her very much and would like to keep her, but, dear lord, since it is thy will to take her away, i am glad to know that she will be with thee." and when she lay a-dying he said to her, "magdalene, my dear little daughter, you would like to remain with this your dear father, wouldn't you, but also gladly go to that father?" the child answered, "yes, dear father, as god wills!" she died in his arms on the evening of the th of september, at nine o'clock. the mother was also in the same room, but at a distance from the bed because of her great sorrow. as she wept bitterly and was very sad luther said to her, "dear kate, consider where she is going! she fares well indeed!" when they laid her in her coffin he said, "you dear little lena, how happy you are! you will rise again and shine as the stars, yea, as the sun." to the bystanders he said, "in the spirit, indeed, i rejoice, but according to the flesh i am very sad. such parting is very painful. it is very strange--to know that she is in peace and well off, and yet to be so sad!" the people who had come to the funeral to express their sympathy he addressed thus, "you ought to rejoice! i have sent a saint to heaven, yes, a living saint. o that we had such a death! such a death i would accept this moment!" after the funeral luther said, "my daughter is now taken care of both as to body and as to soul. we christians have nothing to complain of, we know that it must be thus. we have the greatest assurance of eternal life; for god cannot lie who has promised it to us through and for the sake of his son." upon her grave he placed the following epitaph: "i, luther's daughter magdalene, with the saints here sleep, and covered calmly rest on this my couch of earth; daughter of death i was, born of the seed of sin, but by thy precious blood redeemed, o christ! i live." . home life and charity. elector john gave luther the former cloister building as a residence. it was a large house with a beautiful garden, close to the walls of the city. the narrow cloister cells were changed into large rooms. here kate, now, went to housekeeping. she was a faithful and saving housekeeper. luther's income was very small; he received a salary of florins. withal he was very charitable toward the poor, and hospitable toward his visitors. hardly a week passed that he entertained no guests. from all countries they came to wittenberg, doctors and students, to see the man face to face who had accomplished such great things. besides this, he was daily visited by friends and students. it was, therefore, no easy matter to manage the household with the meager salary. but his friends took care that under god's blessing he suffered no want, and luther confessed: "i have a strange housekeeping indeed! i use up more than i receive. although my salary is but florins, yet every year i must spend for housekeeping and in the kitchen, not to speak of the children, other luxuries, and alms. i am entirely too awkward. the support of my needy relatives and the daily calls of strangers make me poor. yet i am richer than all popish theologians, because i am content with little and have a true wife." the following are a few examples of luther's charity: a student once came to him and complained with tears of his need. as luther had no money he took a silver cup that was gilded within and said, "there, take that cup and go home in god's name." his wife looked at him and asked, "are you going to give everything away?" luther pressed the cup together in his strong hand and said to the student, "quick, take it to the goldsmith, i do not need it." at another time a poor man asked him for assistance. luther had no money, but took his children's savings and gave them to him. when his wife reproached him he said, "god is rich, he will give us more." a man exiled because of his faith asked him for alms. luther had but one dollar (called "joachim"), which he had carefully saved. without thinking long he opened his purse and called, "joachim, come out! the savior is here!" friends, students, doctors, and all kinds of admirers often sat at luther's table. the meal was generally simple, but seasoned with serious and cheerful conversation. after table he was fond of having a little music with his friends and children. in praise of music he said: "music is great comfort to a sad person. it cheers and refreshes the heart and fills it with contentment. it is half a schoolmaster and makes the people softer, meeker, more modest, and more reasonable. i have always loved music. whoever knows this art has a good nature and is fit for everything. music should by all means be taught in the schools. a schoolmaster must be able to sing, or i will not look at him." at another time he said: "music is a gift and blessing of god. next to theology i give to music the first place and highest honor." . luther's opinion on his wife and holy matrimony. luther writes of his married life: "god willed it, and, praise god, i have done well, for i have a pious and true wife in which a man may confide; she spoils nothing." in these words he lauds his kate: "she has not only faithfully nursed and cared for me as a pious wife, but she has also waited upon me as a servant. the lord repay her on that day. i consider her more precious than the kingdom of france, for she has been to me a good wife, given and presented to me of god, as i was given to her. i love my kate, yes, i love her more than myself, that is certainly true. i would rather die myself than have her and the children die." in praise of marriage he says: "according to god's word there is no sweeter and dearer treasure upon earth than holy matrimony, which he himself has instituted, and which he also preserves and has adorned and blessed above all other estates." chapter xviii. luther's last days and death. . luther's presentiment of death. eight days after his last birthday, which he celebrated on the th of november in the company of his friends, he finished his exposition of genesis and closed his lecture to the students with these impressive words: "i am weak! i cannot continue; pray god to grant me a blessed death." and he wrote to a friend: "i am sick of this world, and the world is sick of me; it will not be difficult for us to part, as a guest quits his inn. therefore i pray for a peaceful end, i am ready to depart." at the close of his last sermon in eisleben the thoughts of his heart are expressed in this wish: "may god give us grace that we gratefully accept his beloved word, increase and grow in the knowledge and faith of his son, and remain steadfast in the confession of his holy word unto our end! amen." . luther's journey to eisleben. in the beginning of the counts of mansfeld requested luther to come to eisleben and settle a dispute which had arisen between themselves and their subjects. luther consented to go, and, together with his three sons, on the d of january, he set out on his last pilgrimage on this earth. in halle he visited his friend dr. jonas. while there he preached on the conversion of paul and praised the writings of this apostle as the holy of holies. on the th of january, when crossing the swollen saale in a small boat, his life was in great danger. luther said to jonas, "dear jonas, how it would please the devil if i, dr. martin, with you and our guides, would fall into the water and drown!" not far from eisleben he became so weak that fears were entertained for his life. but he soon regained his strength. in eisleben luther preached several times, and took great pains to settle the dispute between the counts and their subjects. when matters were settled luther began to think of returning home; but god had decided otherwise. [illustration: luther's death.] . luther's illness and death. already on the th of february luther could not attend the meetings because of his increasing weakness. in accordance with the advice of his friends and the counts he remained in his room and rested. about eight o'clock in the evening he took his medicine and lay down on his couch, saying, "if i could sleep for half an hour i believe i would improve." he now slept calmly till ten o'clock, when he awoke, arose, and went into his bedroom. as he entered the room he said, "in the name of god, i am going to bed. into thy hands i commend my spirit; thou hast redeemed me, thou faithful god." at one o'clock he awoke and said, "o lord god, i feel so bad! ah, dear dr. jonas, i believe i shall die here at eisleben where i was born and baptized." again he left his bedroom and entered the sitting room, saying again, "into thy hands i commend my spirit, thou hast redeemed me, thou faithful god." when he was again resting on his couch his friends hurried to his side, with count albrecht, the countess, and two physicians. when, upon repeated rubbings, he began to perspire freely dr. jonas thought he was improving, but luther answered, "no, it is the cold sweat of death; i will give up my spirit, for the sickness is increasing." then he prayed thus: "o my heavenly father, the god and father of our lord jesus christ, thou god of all consolation! i thank thee that thou hast revealed to me thy dear son jesus christ, in whom i believe, whom i have preached and confessed, whom i have loved and extolled, whom the wicked pope and the ungodly dishonor, persecute, and blaspheme. i pray thee, lord jesus christ, receive my poor soul into thy hands. o heavenly father, although i must quit this body and be torn away from this life, i nevertheless know assuredly that i shall be with thee forever, and that no one can pluck me out of thy hands." then three times he repeated the passage: "god so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life," john , , and the words of the th psalm: "he that is our god, is the god of salvation; and unto god the lord belong the issues of death." when the physician gave him a cordial he took it and said, "i pass away; i shall yield up my spirit," after which he rapidly repeated these words three times: "father, into thy hands i commend my spirit, thou hast redeemed me, lord, thou faithful god." now he lay quiet, when spoken to he did not answer. dr. jonas called into his ear, "reverend father, are you firmly determined to die upon christ and the doctrine you have preached?" loud and distinctly luther answered, "yes!" having said this he turned upon his side and fell asleep, saved in the faith of his redeemer, on the th of february, , between two and three o'clock in the morning. . luther's funeral. the sad tidings of luther's death spread rapidly through town and country. a great multitude of people of all classes gathered to view the previous remains of the man who had again brought to light the saving word of god. when the news of luther's death reached wittenberg and melanchthon told the students, he exclaimed, "alas, he has been taken from us, the chariot of israel and the horsemen thereof, by whom the church was guided in this last age of the world!" on the th day of february the corpse was laid in a metallic coffin, borne into the castle church of eisleben, and placed before the altar. on the following day dr. coelius preached an excellent sermon, after which the corpse was carried in solemn funeral procession to wittenberg. with weeping and wailing a countless multitude surrounded the hearse, and in nearly every village the bells were tolled. when, late at night, the funeral approached the gates of halle the clergy, the city council, the schools, and the citizens, together with women and children, marched out to meet it and escorted the corpse into the church. the service opened with luther's hymn, "out of the depths i cry to thee," the weeping being heard more than the singing. on the d of february the funeral train reached wittenberg. amid the tolling of the bells it moved toward the castle church, the hearse being followed by luther's widow, his four children, and other relatives. then came the faculty, the students, and the citizens. dr. bugenhagen preached a comforting sermon, which was frequently interrupted by his own tears and the weeping of his audience. at the close melanchthon delivered a latin oration, after which the corpse was lowered into the vault near the pulpit, where it awaits the coming of the resurrection morn. chapter xix. afflictions of the lutheran church in germany after the reformation. . the smalcald war. already during the life of luther clouds of war had frequently arisen, threatening to destroy the lutheran church. but as long as luther lived the storm did not break. his prophecy was fulfilled: "i have fervently prayed to god, and still beseech him daily, to check the evil counsels of the papists and permit no war to come upon germany while i live, and i am sure that god has certainly heard my prayer, and i know that as long as i live there will be no war in germany. now when i am dead, rest and sleep do you also pray. i will die before this calamity and misery come upon germany." scarcely had luther closed his eyes when the emperor and the pope thought the time had come again to strengthen popery and oppress the lutheran doctrine with the sword, aye, completely to destroy it. the emperor accused the lutheran princes of disobedience because they would not submit to the edict of augsburg, and declared the ban of the empire against them. soon thereafter he made war upon them. the lutherans also gathered an army for their defense. before the elector john frederick was aware of it the emperor's army, led by a traitor, fell upon him. on the th of april, , the battle was fought near muehlberg on the elbe. the army of the lutheran princes was defeated; remained upon the battlefield, and the elector himself was taken prisoner. not long thereafter he was condemned to die. only on condition that he surrender his electoral crown and domain to the lutheran duke maurice of saxony, who had joined the forces of the emperor, was he to be pardoned. the elector gave up his country without remonstrance, but he would not forsake his faith. his high courage earned him the title, "the magnanimous." for when the emperor demanded that he sign the resolutions of the council of trent in which the lutheran doctrine was condemned, he declared with indignation: "i will abide steadfast in the doctrine and confession which, together with my father and other princes, i confessed at augsburg, and rather give up country and people, yea, and my head also, than forsake the word of god." thus the cause of the lutheran confessors seemed to be lost. but right in the midst of war's tumult and the enemy's triumph sounded the word of the lord: "take counsel together, and it shall come to naught; speak the word, and it shall not stand; for god is with us," is. , . god helped wonderfully. maurice of saxony demanded of the emperor the release of his father-in-law, philip of hesse. when the emperor refused to do this maurice turned against him with his army and put him to flight. in the peace of augsburg was signed. by it complete liberty of religion and worship was guaranteed to the lutherans for the future. . doctrinal controversies. already in the days of luther fanatics had attempted to darken and displace the true doctrine with diverse errors. after his death his prophetic words were fulfilled: "i see it coming, if god does not give us faithful pastors and ministers the devil will disrupt the church by factious spirits, and will not leave off nor cease till he has finished it. if the devil cannot do it through the pope and the emperor he will accomplish it through those who now agree with us in doctrine. therefore pray god to let his word remain with you, for abominable things will happen. i know that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock." scarcely had the faithful watchman and guardian been gathered to his fathers when everywhere teachers and preachers arose who departed from the truth of god's word and tried to set up their own false teachings. thus some taught: good works are necessary unto salvation; others, again, maintained: not only are they unnecessary, but they are harmful to our salvation. again, it was taught that man could prepare himself for grace, and assist in his conversion. others even secretly plotted to introduce the false doctrines of the reformed into the lutheran church. thus the bright light which shone so brilliantly in luther's days was in danger of being obscured by the doctrines of men. but in the midst of such confusion god had his faithful confessors. after heated contests truth, by god's grace, obtained the victory. in , by the united labors of the faithful confessors, the form of concord, the last confession of the lutheran church, was completed. in this confession the lutheran church renounces all error and demands of all its members unity of doctrine and confession. the reestablished unity of doctrine called forth loud rejoicing and thanksgiving to god everywhere in germany. in the book of concord of the lutheran church, containing also the form of concord, appeared in print for the first time. . the thirty years' war. this good fortune and peace of the lutheran church did not last long. satan did not cease to attack her. for his purpose he especially used the jesuits, a new order of monks. these allied servants of the pope used every means to suppress the lutheran church. as advisers of princes, in the confessional, and as teachers at the higher schools they fanned the flame of hatred against the lutherans, and their endeavors were not in vain. through them a war of thirty years began to rage in germany. during the reign of emperor rudolph ii the religious peace guaranteed at augsburg was broken repeatedly, and the lutherans were sorely oppressed. finally, when a protestant church in bohemia was forcibly closed and another was even torn down, the storm broke loose. by it the greater part of germany was laid waste, and untold misery was caused. everywhere the evangelical princes were defeated, and their cause seemed to be lost. the pope and his minions rejoiced. but in the hour of greatest distress help appeared in the person of gustavus adolphus, king of sweden. everywhere the people welcomed him. however, in his march of triumph through germany he met with a bloody death. on the th of november, , a battle was fought at luetzen. in the swedish army the trumpeters played the hymn, "a mighty fortress is our god." then the whole army sang, "may god bestow on us his grace." whereupon the king cried, "now at it! in the name of god! jesus, jesus, jesus, help us fight this day in honor of thy holy name!" the swedes gained a glorious victory, but their king, struck by a bullet, fell dying from his horse. sixteen years longer the deplorable war raged on. in the long-desired peace was finally concluded. in it the religious peace of augsburg was again acknowledged and extended to include the reformed church. the pope protested violently, but in vain. it is true, conditions after the war were terrible in germany, also for the lutheran church. but the chastenings of the lord strengthened the faith in his word, and the church flourished and prospered. faithful pastors strengthened the christians by their sermons and their writings, and everywhere the seed grew and brought fruit. it was just in this time that pious poets made their harps resound and sang their glorious hymns to the honor and praise of god. . rationalism and unionism. in no way had the devil succeeded in smothering the lutheran church in its own blood or in destroying it by false doctrine. again and again courageous witnesses arose, and in loud and clear words testified that man is justified and saved by grace alone, for christ's sake, through faith. at the end of the seventeenth century, however, men arose in england who craftily sought to abolish the christian faith. these were the so-called deists, or freethinkers. their doctrine, at first, passed from england to france, and then to germany. human reason was to take the place of the bible. luther's prophecy was fulfilled: "until now you have heard the true, faithful word; now beware of your own thoughts and your own wisdom. the devil will light the candle of reason and deprive you of faith." not the scriptures, the revelation of god, but human reason was to decide matters of faith and salvation. whatever did not agree with human reason was simply to be rejected as superstition. whoever confessed his faith in the truths of the bible was called an obscurant. those were sad times. in addition, the so-called "union" in germany, by sacrificing the biblical truth, made the attempt to unite the lutheran and the reformed churches into a mixed church, which was called the evangelical church. in this way the ruin of the church of the pure gospel was to be completed. faithful lutherans who would not join in this apostasy were violently persecuted, cast into prison, cruelly punished, or compelled to emigrate into foreign countries, australia or america. chapter xx. the lutheran church in america. . the mustard seed. when the lutheran church in germany was in its prime it was transplanted also across the waters, into the wilds of america. as early as the first lutheran swedes emigrated to america and founded the first lutheran congregation in the valley of the delaware. in the dutch had also founded lutheran churches in the state of new york. the most important of these churches was in the city of new york. it was cruelly oppressed by the reformed officials. the true lutheran confessors were frequently fined and imprisoned. as soon as england, however, took possession of this dutch colony the lutherans were granted liberty of conscience and freedom of worship. on new year's day, , the first _german_ lutheran congregation, with its pastor, kocherthal, landed on the coasts of america. they likewise settled in the state of new york and founded several colonies on the banks of the hudson. the greatest number of germans settled in the state of pennsylvania. since their most zealous pastor was henry melchior muehlenberg. together with diligent colaborers he founded many congregations, which afterwards united to form the pennsylvania synod. since lutheran salzburgers were found in the colony of georgia. rationalism and fanaticism, however, made powerful inroads also into this flourishing lutheran church of america. the time came when very few had any idea of the nature of true lutheranism. but the light was once more to shine in this land of the west. in seven hundred lutheran saxons came to america. they brought their pastors, candidates, and teachers with them. after suffering severe persecution they had left their old fatherland to live here, in this land of liberty, in accordance with their most holy faith. a part of them remained in st. louis and founded a congregation with a christian school. the most of these faithful confessors settled in perry county, in the state of missouri, where they founded a number of colonies with congregations and christian schools. in the colony of altenburg a seminary was even erected for the education of ministers. since the congregation at st. louis was served by carl ferdinand william walther as pastor and preacher. this man has proved to be of inestimable blessing for the lutheran church of america. in he and his congregation began to issue the _lutheraner_ in order to gather the scattered christians around the word of god. this paper was to be a powerful means to acquaint people with the lutheran doctrine and to defend it against all error. the very first number was a trumpet that gave a distinct and powerful sound. after reading it, the missionary wyneken joyfully exclaimed, "god be praised, there are more lutherans in america!" in the summer of he had come to this country a candidate of the holy ministry, twenty-eight years of age, in order to bring the gospel to the scattered germans. in germany he had read and heard of their great spiritual need, and their misery had touched ids heart. after a short stay in baltimore he traveled inland, toward ohio and indiana. he came to the little town of fort wayne, where he found a little congregation. here wyneken preached several times, officiated at funerals, and baptized. the people learned to love him, and called him as their pastor. from here he journeyed to and fro, and, undaunted by hardships, visited his scattered brethren of the faith, brought them the word of life, and gathered them into congregations. in the following years other lutheran pastors, some of them accompanied by their congregations, also came to america. in this way the lutheran colonies of the saginaw valley were founded. . the tree. in a number of likeminded pastors met in conference at cleveland, ohio, to discuss the founding of an orthodox lutheran synod. in the following year several of these pastors met in st. louis in order to consult with walther and other saxon pastors concerning the same matter. on this occasion the draft of a synodical constitution was carefully considered together with the local congregation. this draft was later on submitted to an assembly at fort wayne. finally, in , at chicago, the german evangelical lutheran synod of missouri, ohio, and other states was founded. walther was unanimously elected president. the members of this synod had recognized that the doctrine restored by luther and contained in the confessions of the lutheran church is the true and pure doctrine of the word of god. upon this foundation they resolved to stand and in the future carry on together the work of the lord in this country. and to this day, by the grace of god, they have remained true to this confession. they accept god's revealed word as the only source of knowledge for doctrine and practice. and the heart of all their teaching is the doctrine of justification of a poor sinner before god, not through his own works and merit, but alone through faith in the lord jesus christ. "god's word and luther's doctrine pure shall through eternity endure," is the watchword which the synod has not only written on its _lutheraner_, but which its members also dearly cherish in their hearts. for the preparation and education of its pastors and teachers the synod has, in the course of years, established a large number of institutions. the first of these is the theological seminary at st. louis. in this institution dr. walther labored with signal blessing as professor, and through his lectures and his many writings became the leader of teachers, pastors, and congregations. he died in . in springfield the synod has its supplementary theological seminary, in which prof. craemer labored for many years. the seminary for teachers is in addison. its first director was the sainted prof. lindemann. the preparatory institutions are in fort wayne, milwaukee, st. paul, and at several other places. about sixty professors teach at these institutions. essentially the work of the synod is carried on in the same way as at the time of the fathers. in the same manner as wyneken missionaries travel about visiting their scattered brethren in the faith and gathering them into congregations. at the same time with the congregation the parochial school is founded and developed for the education of the children in the catechism. in the missouri synod joined with other orthodox synods, forming the evangelical-lutheran synodical conference. at present this is composed of the synods of missouri, of wisconsin, of minnesota, of michigan, and of the english evangelical-lutheran synod of missouri and other states. the synods of wisconsin, minnesota, and michigan have united to form a general synod and possess several institutions for the education of pastors and teachers. their theological seminary is at milwaukee. the norwegian synod, which confesses the same faith, also has several educational institutions. the english synod at present has colleges at winfield, kans., and conover, n. c. all these synods are indefatigable in the work of mission and in the preservation of the pure doctrine. the mustard seed has become a tree, a tree whose branches cover not only the states of the union and a great part of british america, but whose twigs extend even to south america, europe, australia, and asia; a tree continually growing new shoots beneath which birds of passage from every province of germany and from every country of the world have found their home, and raise their hymns in the most diverse melodies to the honor and praise, glory and worship of the triune god. everywhere, nearly all over the globe, is sung: "dear christians, one and all, rejoice," and from countless lips luther's hymn of battle and triumph is heard, "a mighty fortress is our god!"