History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century Volume I Part 12

BOOK SECOND.

CHAP. I.

YOUTH, CONVERSION, AND FIRST LABOURS OF LUTHER.

1483-1517.

Luther's Descent--His Parents--His Birth--Poverty--The Paternal Roof--Strict Discipline--First Lessons--The School of Magdebourg--Wretchedness--Isenach--The Shunammite--The House of Cotta--The Arts--Remembrance of those Times--His Studies--Trebonius--The University.

All was ready. G.o.d takes ages to prepare his work, but when the hour is come, accomplishes it by the feeblest instruments. To do great things by small means, is the law of G.o.d. This law, which appears in every department of nature, is found also in history. G.o.d took the Reformers of the Church, where he had taken the Apostles. He selected them from that humble cla.s.s which, without containing the meanest of the people, is scarcely the length of citizenship. Every thing must manifest to the world that the work is not of man, but of G.o.d. The Reformer Zuinglius comes forth from the hut of a shepherd of the Alps, Melancthon, the Theologian of the Reformation, from the workshop of an armourer, and Luther from the cottage of a poor miner.

The first stage in a man's life, that in which he is formed and moulded under the hand of G.o.d, is always important, and was so especially in the case of Luther. There, even at that period, the whole Reformation existed. The different phases of that great work succeeded each other in the soul of him who was the instrument of accomplishing it, before it was actually accomplished. The knowledge of the Reformation which took place in Luther's heart is the only key to the Reformation of the Church. We must study the particular work, if we would attain to a knowledge of the general work. Those who neglect the one will never know more than the form and exterior of the other. They may acquire a knowledge of certain events and certain results, but the intrinsic nature of the revival they cannot know, because the living principle which formed the soul of it, is hidden from them. Let us then study the Reformation in Luther, before studying it in events which changed the face of Christendom.

In the village of Mora, towards the forests of Thuringia, and not far from the spot where Boniface, the Apostle of Germany, began to proclaim the gospel, there existed, and, undoubtedly, had existed for ages, an ancient and numerous family of the name of Luther.[121] The eldest son, as usual with the peasantry of Thuringia, always succeeded to the house and the paternal plot, while the younger members of the family set out in quest of a livelihood. John Luther having married Margaret Lindemann, daughter of an inhabitant of Neustadt, in the bishopric of Warzburg, the married couple removed from the plains of Isenach, and fixed their residence in the little town of Eisleben, in Saxony, in order to gain their bread by the sweat of their brow.

[121] "Vetus familia est et late propagata mediocrium hominum."

(Melancth. Vita Luth.) It is an old and wide spread family, consisting of individuals in humble circ.u.mstances.

Seckendorff relates, on the testimony of Robhan, superintendant of Isenach in 1601, that Luther's mother, thinking she was still far from her time, had gone to the fair of Eisleben, and there, unexpectedly, gave birth to a son. Notwithstanding of the credit due to such a man as Seckendorff, this account appears not to be correct. In fact, none of the older biographers of Luther make any mention of it. Besides, Mora is more than twenty-four leagues distant from Eisleben, and persons in the circ.u.mstances in which Luther's mother then was seldom are disposed to take such long journeys _to go to the fair_. In fine, the account seems quite at variance with Luther's own statement.[122]

[122] "Ego natus sum in Eisleben, baptizatusque apud Sanctum Petrum ibidem. Parentes mei de prope Isenaco illuc migrarunt." (Luth., Ep. i, p. 390.) I was born at Eisleben, and baptized in St. Peter's there. My parents came thither from near Isenach.

John Luther was an upright, straightforward, hard-working man, with a firmness of character bordering on obstinacy. Of a more cultivated mind than usual with persons of his cla.s.s, he was a great reader.

Books were then rare. But he never let pa.s.s any opportunity of procuring them. They were his relaxation in the intervals of repose from hard and long-continued labour. Margaret possessed the virtues which adorn honest and pious women. She was remarked, in particular, for her modesty, her fear of G.o.d, and her spirit of prayer. The mothers of the place regarded her as a model whom they ought to imitate.[123]

[123] "Intuebantur in eam caeterae honestae mulieres ut in exemplar virtutum." (Melancth. Vita Lutheri.) Other honest wives looked to her as a model of virtue.

It is not exactly known how long this couple had been fixed at Eisleben, when, on the 10th November, an hour before midnight, Margaret gave birth to a son. Melancthon often questioned the mother of his friend as to the period of his birth. "I remember the day and the hour very well," would she reply; "but for the year, I am not certain of it." Luther's brother, James, an honest and upright man, has stated, that, in the opinion of all the family, Martin was born in the year of Christ 1483, on the 10th November, being St. Martin's eve.[124] The first thought of the pious parents was to take the infant which G.o.d had given them, and dedicate it to G.o.d in holy baptism. On the following day, which happened to be a Tuesday, the father, with grat.i.tude and joy, carried his son to St. Peter's church, where he received the seal of his dedication to the Lord. He was named Martin in honour of the day.

[124] Ibid.

Young Martin was not six months old when his parents quitted Eisleben for Mansfeld, which is only five leagues distant. The mines of Mansfeld were then much famed, and John Luther, a labouring man, feeling that he might perhaps be called to rear a numerous family, hoped he might there more easily gain a livelihood. It was in this town that the intellect and powers of young Luther received their first development; here his activity began to be displayed, and his disposition to be manifested by what he said and did. The plains of Mansfeld, the banks of the Wipper, were the scenes of his first sports with his playmates.

The commencement of their residence at Mansfeld was attended with painful privations to honest John and his wife; for they lived some time in great poverty. "My parents," says the Reformer, "were very poor. My father was a poor wood-cutter, and my mother often carried his wood on her back to procure subsistence for us children. The toil they endured for us was severe, even to blood." The example of parents whom he respected, and the habits in which they trained him, early accustomed Luther to exertion and frugality. Often, doubtless, he accompanied his mother to the wood, and made up his little f.a.ggot also.

Promises are given to the just man's labour, and John Luther experienced the reality of them. Having become somewhat more easy in his circ.u.mstances, he established two smelting furnaces at Mansfeld.

Around these furnaces young Martin grew up; and the return which they yielded enabled his father, at a later period, to provide for his studies. "The spiritual founder of Christendom," says worthy Mathesius, "was to come forth from a family of miners, an image of what G.o.d purposed, when he employed him to cleanse the sons of Levi, and purify them in his furnaces like gold."[125] Universally respected for his integrity, his blameless life, and good sense, John Luther was made a counsellor of Mansfeld, the capital of the county of that name.

Too great wretchedness might have weighed down the spirit of the child, but the easy circ.u.mstances of the paternal roof expanded his heart, and elevated his character.

[125] "Drumb musste diese geistliche Schmelzer...." (Mathesius, Historien, 1565, p. 3.)

John availed himself of his new situation to cultivate the society which he preferred. He set great value on educated men, and often invited the clergymen and teachers of the place to his table. His house presented an example of one of those societies of simple citizens which did honour to Germany at the commencement of the sixteenth century, and, as a mirror, reflected the numerous images which succeeded each other on the troubled stage of that time. It was not lost on the child. The sight of men to whom so much respect was shown in his father's house must, doubtless, on more than one occasion, have awakened in young Martin's heart an ambitious desire one day to become a school-master or a man of learning.

As soon as he was of an age to receive some instruction, his parents sought to give him the knowledge and inspire him with the fear of G.o.d, and train him in Christian virtues. Their utmost care was devoted to his primary domestic education.[126] This, however, was not the sole object of their tender solicitude.

[126] "Ad agnitionem et timorem Dei, ... domestica inst.i.tutione diligenter a.s.suefecerunt." (Melancth. Vit. Luth.) By domestic instruction, they carefully trained him into the knowledge and fear of G.o.d.

His father, desirous of seeing him acquire the elements of knowledge for which he himself had so much esteem, invoked the Divine blessing on his head, and sent him to school. As Martin was still a very little boy, his father or Nicolas Emler, a young man of Mansfeld, often carried him in their arms to the house of George Emilius, and went again to fetch him. Emler afterwards married one of Luther's sisters.

The piety of the parents, their activity and strict virtue, gave a happy impulse to the boy, making him of a grave and attentive spirit.

The system of education which then prevailed employed fear and punishment as its leading stimulants. Margaret, though sometimes approving the too strict discipline of her husband, often opened her maternal arms to Martin, to console him in his tears. She herself occasionally carried to excess that precept of Divine wisdom, which says, "He that spareth the rod hateth his son." The impetuous temper of the child often led to frequent reproof and correction. "My parents," says Luther, in after life, "treated me harshly, and made me very timid. My mother one day chastised me about a filbert till the blood came. They believed with all their heart they were doing right, but they could not discriminate between dispositions, though this is necessary in order to know when and how punishments should be inflicted."[127]

[127] "Sed non poterant discernere ingenia secundum quae essent temperandae correctiones." (Luth. Op. W. xxii, p. 1785.) But they could not discriminate between minds, though these ought to regulate chastis.e.m.e.nt.

The poor child's treatment at school was not less severe. His master one morning beat him fifteen times in succession. "It is necessary,"

said Luther, when mentioning the fact, "it is necessary to chastise children; but it is necessary, at the same time, to love them." With such an education, Luther early learned to despise the allurements of a sensual life. "He who is to become great must begin with little,"[128] justly remarks one of his earliest biographers; "and if children are brought up with too much delicacy and tenderness, it does them harm all the rest of their life."

[128] "Was gross sol werden, muss klein angeben." (Mathesius, Hist. p.

3.)

Martin learned something at school. He was taught the heads of the Catechism, the Ten Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, hymns, forms of prayer, and the _Donat_. This last was a Latin grammar, composed in the fourth century by Donatus, St. Jerome's master; and having been improved in the eleventh century by a French monk, named Remigius, was long in high repute as a school-book. He moreover conned the Ciseo-Ja.n.u.s, a very singular almanac, composed in the tenth or eleventh century. In short, he learned all that was taught in the Latin school of Mansfeld.

But the child seems not to have been brought to G.o.d. The only religious sentiment which could be discovered in him was that of fear.

Whenever he heard Jesus Christ mentioned he grew pale with terror; for the Saviour had been represented to him as an angry Judge. This servile fear, so foreign to genuine religion, perhaps predisposed him for the glad tidings of the gospel, and for the joy which he afterwards experienced when he became acquainted with him who is meek and lowly in heart.

John Luther longed to make his son a learned man. The new light, which began to radiate in all directions, penetrated even the cottage of the miner of Mansfield, and there awakened ambitious thoughts. The remarkable disposition, and persevering application of his son, inspired John with the most brilliant hopes. Accordingly, in 1497, when Martin had completed his fourteenth year, his father resolved to part with him, and send him to a school of the Franciscans at Magdebourg. Margaret behoved, of course, to consent, and Martin prepared to quit the paternal roof.

Magdebourg was like a new world to Martin. Amid numerous privations, (for he had scarcely the means of subsistence,) he read and attended lectures; Andre Proles, provincial of the Augustine Order, was then preaching with great fervour on the necessity of reforming religion and the Church. He, however, was not the person who deposited in the young man's soul the first germ of those ideas which afterwards expanded in it.

This period was a kind of severe apprenticeship to Luther. Launched upon the world at fourteen, without friend or patron, he trembled in presence of his masters, and, during the hours of recreation, painfully begged his food with children as poor as himself. "I and my comrades," says he, "begged a little food for our subsistence. One day, at the season when the Church celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, we were in a body scouring the neighbouring villages, going from house to house, and, in four parts, singing the ordinary hymns on the Babe at Bethlehem. We stopped before a peasant's cottage, which stood by itself at the extremity of a village. The peasant, hearing us singing our Christmas carols, came out with some provisions which he meant to give us, and asked, in a gruff voice, and a harsh tone, 'Where are you, boys?' His tones frightened us, and we took to our heels. We had no cause for fear; for the peasant was sincere in his offer of a.s.sistance: but our hearts were, no doubt, made timid by the menaces and tyranny with which masters at this period oppressed their scholars; hence the sudden fright which seized us. At last, however, the peasant still continuing to call us, we stopped, laid aside our fear, and, running up to him, received the food which he intended for us." "In the same way," adds Luther, "are we wont to tremble and flee when our conscience is guilty and alarmed. Then we are afraid even of the a.s.sistance which is offered to us, and of those who are friendly to us, and would do us all sorts of kindness."[129]

[129] Luth. Op. Walch. ii, 2347.

A year had scarcely pa.s.sed, when John and Margaret, on being made aware of the difficulties which their son had in living in Magdebourg, sent him to Isenach, where there was a celebrated school, and they had a number of relations.[130] They had other children; and though their circ.u.mstances had improved, they were unable to maintain their son in a strange town. The forges and late hours of John Luther did no more than keep the family at Mansfield. It was hoped that Martin would find a livelihood more easily at Isenach, but he was not more successful.

His relations in the town did not trouble themselves about him.

Perhaps their own poverty made them unable to give him any a.s.sistance.

[130] "Isenachum enim pene totam parentelam habet." (Luth. Ep. i, p.

390.) For almost all my relations live in Isenach.

When the scholar felt the gnawings of hunger he had no resource but to do as at Magdebourg,--to join his fellow-students, and sing with them before the houses for a morsel of bread. This custom of the time of Luther has been preserved, even to our day, in several towns of Germany, where the voices of the boys sometimes produce a most harmonious chant. Instead of bread, poor modest Martin often received only hard words. Then, overcome with sadness, he shed many tears in secret, unable to think of the future without trembling.

One day, in particular, he had been repulsed from three houses, and was preparing, without having broken his fast, to return to his lodging, when, on arriving at St. George's Square, he halted, and, absorbed in gloomy thoughts, stood motionless before the house of an honest burgher.

Will it be necessary, from want of bread, to give up study, and go and work with his father in the mines of Mansfeld? Suddenly a door opens, and a female is seen on the threshold,--it was the wife of Conrad Cotta, the daughter of the burgomaster of Ilefeld.[131] Her name was Ursula. The Chronicles of Isenach call her "the pious Shunammite," in allusion to her who so earnestly pressed the prophet Elisha to eat bread with her. Previous to this the Christian Shunammite had more than once observed young Martin in the a.s.semblies of the faithful, and been touched by the sweetness of his voice, and his devout behaviour.[132] She had just heard the harsh language addressed to the poor scholar, and seeing him in sadness before her door, she came to his a.s.sistance, beckoned him to enter, and set food before him to appease his hunger.

[131] Lingk's Reisegesch, Luth.

[132] "Dieweil sic umb seines singen und herzlichen Gebets willen."...

(Mathesius. p. 3.)

Conrad approved of the benevolence of his wife, and was even so much pleased with the society of young Luther, that some days after he took him home to his house. From this moment his studies were secure. He will not be obliged to return to the mines of Mansfeld, and bury the talent with which G.o.d has entrusted him. When he no longer knew what was to become of him G.o.d opened to him the heart and the home of a Christian family. This event helped to give him that confidence in G.o.d which in after life the strongest tempests could not shake.

In the house of Cotta, Luther was introduced to a mode of life very different from that which he had hitherto known. He there led an easy existence, exempt from want and care. His mind became more serene, his disposition more lively, and his heart more open. His whole being expanded to the mild rays of charity, and began to beat with life, joy, and happiness. His prayers were more ardent, and his thirst for knowledge more intense. He made rapid progress.