Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family Part 42

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 a.s.saults, 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 amba.s.sador 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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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 G.o.d, 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 pa.s.ses 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 n.o.ble letter which he wrote to the n.o.bles 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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_ 1521.

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 pet.i.tion 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 pa.s.sed along in the silence through the green forest paths. The moment of liberation, to the pa.s.ser-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 laetandi, 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, Tumba 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 margaritae, Ornamenta rovae vitae: Alleluia resonet!

Vive, vive, Magdalena!

Tua lux reversa est; Guadiis turgesit vena, Mortis vis obstersa est; Maesti procul sunt dolores, Laeti 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d.

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 G.o.d, 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 t.i.tle-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 G.o.d!" 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_, 1521.

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 a.s.sisted 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 n.o.bles" 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.