Pictures of German Life in the XVth XVIth and XVIIth Centuries Volume I Part 5

"Afterwards the merchants returned into the room, and called to the landlord to bring them something to drink; in the mean while they had much talk about the guest, and wondered who he could be. The landlord declared it was Luther, and the merchants were soon convinced of it, and regretted that they had spoken so unbecomingly before him, and said, 'They would rise at an early hour in the morning, that they might see him before he started; and would beg of him not to be angry with them, as they had not known who he was.' This they did, and found him in the morning in the stable; but Martinus answered them, 'You said last night at supper that you would give ten gulden to confess yourself to Luther; when you do so, you will see and learn if I am Martinus Luther.' He did not make himself further known, but mounted his horse and rode off to Wittenberg.

"On the following Sat.u.r.day, the day before the first Sunday in Lent, we presented ourselves at Dr. Jerome Schurf's house to deliver our letters. When we entered the room, behold we found there the knight Martinus just as we had seen him at Jena, and with him were Philippus Melancthon, Justus Jodocus Jonas, Nicholas Amsdorf, and Dr. Augustin Schurf, who were telling him what had happened during his absence from Wittenberg: he greeted us, and laughing, pointed with his finger, and said, 'This is the Philip Melancthon of whom I told you.'"

There is nothing more remarkable in the truthlike narrative of Kessler, than the cheerful tranquillity of the great man whilst riding through Thuringia under ban and interdict, his heart filled with anxious care, on account of the great danger with which his doctrines were threatened by the fanaticism of his own partisans.

CHAPTER VI.

DR. LUTHER.

(1517-1546.)

Even the most enlightened Roman Catholics look with horror upon Luther and Zwinglius as originators of the schism in their old Church. It is to be hoped that such views may disappear in Germany. All sects have reason to thank Luther for whatever depth and spirituality now remains in their faith: The heretic of Wittenberg was as much the reformer of German Roman Catholics as of Protestants; not only, because in the struggle with him the teachers of the Roman Catholic Church were obliged to erect at Trent a firmer building on the ruins of the Church of the middle ages, but because he left the impress of his mind on the character of the people, in which we all equally partake. Some things for which the obstinate and pugnacious Luther contended, against both Reformers and Catholics, have been condemned by the free judgment of modern times. His doctrines, vehement and high strained, wrung from a soul full of reverence, were in some weighty points erroneous, and he was sometimes bitter, unjust, indeed harsh to his opponents; but such things should not lead Germans astray, for all the deficiencies of his nature and education disappear in the fullness of blessing, which streamed from his great heart into the life of his nation.

To few mortals has it been granted to exercise such an influence on his cotemporaries and on after times, as has fallen to the lot of Luther: his life may be divided into three periods. In the first, the character of the man was formed; it was powerfully influenced by the surrounding world, but from the depths of human nature, under the pressure of individual character, thoughts and convictions were gradually strengthened into resolutions which broke forth into action, and the individual commenced a struggle with the world. Then followed another period, one of more energetic action, of more rapid development and of greater triumph. Ever greater became the influence of the individual on the world; powerfully did he draw the whole nation along with him; he became their hero and model; the inward life of millions seemed concentrated in one man.

But a single individual, however powerful in character, however great his aims, could not long dominate over the spirit of a nation, the life, strength, and wants of which are manifold. The man is under the constraint of the logical consequences of his thoughts and actions; all the spirits of his own deeds force him into a fixed limited path; but the soul of a people requires for its life, incessant working with the most varied aims. Much that an individual cannot bring himself to receive, is taken up by others in opposition to him. The reaction of the world begins: it is first weak, and from many quarters, with various tendencies and little authority; then it becomes stronger and more victorious. Finally, the inward spirit of the individual life confines itself within its own system, and becomes only a single element in the formation of the people. The end of a great life is always full of secret resignation, mixed with bitterness and quiet suffering.

And thus it was with Luther. The first of these periods ended with the day on which he affixed his Theses; the second continued till his return from the castle of Wartburg; the third till the beginning of the Smalkaldic war and his death. It is not our intention to give his life here, but only to describe shortly how he became what he was. There was much in him which, only viewed from a distance, appears strange and unpleasing, but the more closely we examine his character, the greater and more amiable we find it.

Luther rose from the peasant cla.s.s; his father left Mohra, a place amid the forests of the Thuringian mountains, which was half peopled by his kindred, to engage in mining in the district of Mansfeld; thus the boy was born in a cottage, where the terrors inspired by the spirits of the pine woods, and dark fissures which served as entrances to the mine in the mountains, were still strong and vivid. His mind was no doubt often occupied with the dark traditions of the heathen mythology; he was accustomed to perceive in the terrors of nature, as well as in the life of man, the work of the powers of darkness. When he became a monk, these recollections of his childhood blended themselves with the figure of the devil, and the busy tempter always wore the same aspect to his imagination as the mischievous hobgoblins that frequent the hearth and stable of the countryman.

His father was a man of concentrated and energetic character, firm and decided, and gifted with a full measure of strong common sense: he struggled hard to attain wealth; he kept strict discipline in his house, and in later years Luther remembered with grief the severe punishment he had received as a boy, and the sorrow it had inflicted on his childish heart. The influence of the old Hans Luther on the life of his son lasted till his death in 1530. When Martin went secretly into a monastery at the age of twenty-two, the old man was violently angry, as he had intended to provide for his son by a good marriage. At last friends succeeded in bringing about a reconciliation between them, and when the supplicating son approached his father, confessing that he had been driven by a fearful apparition to take the monastic vows, he replied to him in the following words: "G.o.d grant that it may not have been a delusion of the devil." He agitated still more the heart of the monk by the angry question: "You thought you were listening to the command of G.o.d when you went into the cloister; have you never heard that it is a duty to be obedient to parents?" This made a deep impression on the son, and when, many years afterwards, he was residing at Wartburg, cast out of the Church, and proscribed by the Emperor, he wrote to his father these touching words: "Do you still wish to withdraw me from the thraldom of the monastery? You are still my father, I your son; you have on your side the power and commands of G.o.d; on my side there is only human error. Behold, that you may not boast yourself before G.o.d, He has antic.i.p.ated you, and taken me out himself." From that time he was as it were restored to the old man.

Hans had once reckoned upon having a grandson for whom he would work, and to this idea he stubbornly returned, regardless as to what the rest of world thought; he soon therefore admonished him earnestly, to marry, and his persuasions had a great share in determining Luther to do so.

When the father, who at a great age had become councillor of Mansfeld, was about to draw his last breath, and the priest bending over him asked him whether he died in the pure faith of Christ and the Holy Gospel, old Hans collected himself once more, and said shortly: "He is a rogue who does not believe in it." When, afterwards, Luther was relating this, he added admiringly: "That was indeed a man of the olden time." The son received the account of his father's death, in the fortress of Coburg; and when he read the letter, which his wife had conveyed to him with the portrait of his youngest daughter, Magdalen, he spoke only these words to his companions: "G.o.d's will be done, my father is dead." He arose, took his psalter, went into his room, where he wept and prayed, and returned with a composed mind. The same day he wrote to Melancthon with deep emotion, of the heartfelt love of his father, and of the entire confidence that existed between them. "Never did I despise death so much as I do now: how often do we suffer death by antic.i.p.ation before we really die! I am now the eldest of my race, and I have a right to follow him."

Such was the father from whom the son derived the groundwork of his character, veracity, a steadfast will, an honest understanding, and circ.u.mspection in the management of business and in his dealings with men. His childhood was full of hardships, and he had much that was disagreeable to endure at his Latin school, and as a chorister; but he experienced also much good-will and love, and he retained, what is more easily kept in the smaller circles of life, a heart full of trust in the goodness of human nature, and respect for the great people of the world. His father was able to support him comfortably at the university of Erfurt; he was then full of youthful vigour, and took great delight in joining his companions in vocal and instrumental music. Of his mental life at that time we know but little, only that when in peril of death, in a storm, "a fearful apparition called to him from heaven." In his terror he vowed to go to a monastery, and quickly and secretly carried out his resolution.

It is here that our accounts of the state of his mind begin. At variance with his father, full of terror at an incomprehensible eternity, frightened by the anger of G.o.d, he began, in a convulsive struggle, a life of self-denial, penance, and devotion. He found no peace. All the highest questions of life stormed with fearful power over his distracted soul, which had no anchor to rest on. Strongly did he feel the need of being in harmony with G.o.d and the world, and all that he derived from his faith was unintelligible and repulsive. The mysteries of the moral government of the world were to his mind matters of the deepest import. That the good should be tormented and the wicked made happy, that G.o.d should condemn the whole human race with the monstrous curse of sin, because an inexperienced woman had eaten an apple, and that on the other hand the same G.o.d should bear with our sins, in love and patience; that Christ should sometimes repel upright people with severity, and at others receive adulterers, publicans, and murderers,--about all this, the wisdom of man becomes foolishness. He complained in these words to his ghostly counsellor, Staupitz: "Dear doctor, our Lord G.o.d does indeed deal terribly with us; who can serve Him when He deals such blows on all?" To which the answer was: "How could He otherwise bow down the stiff-necked?" This ingenious argument was of no comfort to the youth. In his earnest strivings to find the incomprehensible G.o.d, he tormented himself in searching out all his thoughts and dreams. Every ebullition of youthful blood, every earthly thought, appeared to him a shocking iniquity; he began to despair, and wrestled with himself in endless prayer, fasting, and mortification. On one occasion the brothers were obliged to break into his cell, where he had been lying the whole day in a state not far removed from insanity.

Staupitz observed with warm sympathy the agitation and torments of his soul, and endeavoured, though only by rough consolation, to give it rest. Once when Luther had written to him, "Oh my sins! my sins! my sins!" his ghostly counsellor answered him: "You wish to be without sin, and yet have no real sins. Christ is the forgiver of mortal sins, such as the murder of parents, &c., &c. If you would have the help of Christ, you must have mortal sins to record, and not come to Him with such trifles and peccadilloes, making a sin out of every little infirmity."

The way in which Luther raised himself out of this despair decided the whole tenour of his life. The G.o.d whom he served appeared then as a G.o.d of terror, whose anger was only to be appeased by the means of grace given by the old Church, especially by continual confession, for which endless forms and directions were given, which were but cold and empty to the spirit. By the prescriptions of the Church and the practice of so-called good works, young Luther had not attained the feeling of true reconciliation and inward peace. At last a sentence from his spiritual adviser pierced him like an arrow: "There is no true repentance that does not begin by the love of G.o.d; the love of G.o.d, and the reception of it in the soul, does not follow, but precedes the means of grace enjoined by the Church." This teaching which came from Tauler's school became for him the foundation of a new, genial, and moral relation with G.o.d; it was a holy discovery to him. The change in his own spirit was the main point for which he must labour; repentance, penance, and expiation must proceed from the inward feelings of the heart. It was by his own efforts alone that man could raise himself to G.o.d. For the first time he experienced what direct prayer was. In the place of a distant G.o.d, whom hitherto he had sought in vain, by hundreds of forms and childish confessions, he beheld the image of an all-loving protector, with whom he could hold communion at every hour, whether in joy or sorrow, before whom he could lay every grief and doubt, who incessantly sympathized with, and cared for him, and, like a good father, either granted or denied the requests of his heart. Thus he learned to pray, and how ardent his prayers became! Now he was able to live in tranquillity, being daily and hourly in communion with his G.o.d, whom he had at last found; his intercourse with the Highest became more confidential than with those dearest to him on earth. When he poured out his whole soul before Him, he obtained rest, holy peace, and a feeling of inexpressible happiness; he felt himself a portion of G.o.d, and this sense of intimate communion with Him he preserved during the whole remainder of his life. He needed no longer the distant paths of the old Church; with his G.o.d in his heart he could defy the whole world. He already ventured to believe, that teaching must be false which laid such great weight on works of penance; that besides these there remained only cold satisfaction and ceremonious confession; and when later he learned from Melancthon that the Greek word for penance, "_Metanoia_," denotes literally "a change of heart," it appeared to him as a wonderful revelation. On this foundation was built that confidence of faith, with which he brought forward the words of Scripture in opposition to the prescriptions of the Church.

It was in this way that Luther, whilst still in the monastery, attained to inward freedom. The whole of his later teaching, his struggle against the indulgences, his unshaken firmness, and his method of scriptural exposition, all rest on the inward process by which as a monk he had found his G.o.d; and one may truly say that the new period of German history began with Luther's cloister prayers. Life soon placed him under its hammer, to harden the pure metal of his soul.

Luther unwillingly took the Professorship of Dialectics in the new university of Wittenberg, in 1508; he would rather have taught that new theology which he already began to consider the truth. It is known that in the year 1510 he went to Rome on the business of his order; how devoutly and piously he lingered in the holy city, and with what dismay he was seized on observing the heathenish character of the people of Rome, and the worldliness and corrupt morals of the ecclesiastics. But deeply as he was shaken by the depravity of the hierarchy, he felt that his whole life was still enclosed in it; out of it there was nothing: The exalted idea of the Roman Catholic Church, and its triumphant reign of 1500 years, fettered even the most powerful minds; and when the German in the dress of a Romish priest, and in danger of his life, contemplated the ruins of ancient Rome, and stood in amazement before the gigantic pillars of the temples, which, according to tradition, had once been destroyed by the Goths little did the valiant man from the mountains of the old Hermunduren then think, that it would be his own fate to destroy the temples of the Rome of the middle ages, more completely than the brethren of his ancestors had done in the olden time. Luther returned from Rome still a faithful son of the great Mother, holding all heretical proceedings, as for example those of the Bohemians, in detestation. He sympathized warmly in Reuchlin's dispute with the Cologne inquisitor, and about 1512 had sided with the Humanitarians. But even then he began to find something in their teaching which separated him from them. When some years later he was at Gotha, he did not visit the worthy Mutia.n.u.s Rufus, though he wrote him a very civil letter of excuse. Soon after, he was much wounded by the coldness and worldly tone of Erasmus's dialogues, in which theological sinners are turned into ridicule. The profane worldliness of the Humanitarians did not suit the earnest faith of Luther; it aroused that pride which had already taken root in his soul, and caused him afterwards to wound the sensitive Erasmus in a letter intended to be conciliatory. Even the form of literary moderation adopted by Luther at this time, gives us the impression of being wrung by the pressure of Christian humility from a stubborn spirit.

He felt himself already strong and secure in his faith: in 1506 he wrote to Spalatinus, who was the connecting link between him and the Elector, Frederic the Wise, that the Elector was of all men most knowing in secular wisdom, but in things pertaining to G.o.d and the salvation of souls, he was struck with sevenfold blindness.

Luther had reason for the opinion here expressed, for the domestic disposition of this sober-minded prince showed itself in his anxiety to provide for his home the means of grace bestowed by the old Church.

Amongst other things he had a particular fancy for relics, and Staupitz, vicar-general of the Augustine monks in Germany, was at that time engaged in collecting these treasures for the Elector. This absence of his superior was very important to Luther, for he had to fill his place. He was already a man of high repute in his order; but though a professor at Wittenberg, he continued to reside in his monastery, and generally wore his monk's dress. He visited the thirty monasteries of his congregation, deposed priors, delivered strong rebukes on account of lax discipline, severely admonished criminal monks, and had become in 1517 a man of fully developed character and commanding powers; yet he still preserved somewhat of the trusting simplicity of the monastic brother.

Thus, when he had affixed the Theses against Tetzel to the church door, he writes confidingly to the Archbishop Albrecht of Maintz, the protector of the trader in indulgences. Full of the popular faith in the good sense and the good will of the governing powers, Luther thought--he often said so later--nothing was necessary but to represent straightforwardly to the princes of the Church the injurious effects and immorality of these malpractices.[27] But how childish did this zeal of the monk appear to the smooth and worldly prince of the Church!

That which had roused such deep indignation in the upright man, had from the archbishop's point of view long been a settled question. The sale of indulgences was a much lamented evil in the Church, but unavoidable, as are to politicians many regulations not good in themselves, but necessary to preserve some great interests. The greatest interest of the archbishops and the guardians of the Romish Church was their dominion, which was to be won and maintained by such means of acquiring money. The greatest interest of Luther and the people was truth; here, therefore, their paths separated.

Thus Luther entered into the struggle, full of faith, still a true son of the Church, and with all the German devotedness to authority; but yet his firm connection with his G.o.d worked in him strongly against this authority. He was then thirty-four years of age, in the full vigour of his strength, of middle size, thin, but strongly made, so that he appeared tall by the side of the small delicate boyish figure of Melancthon. Fiery eyes, whose intense brilliancy was almost overpowering, glowed in a face in which one could perceive the effects of night watches and inward struggles. Though a man of great repute, not only in his order, but in the university, he was no great scholar; he first began to learn Greek with Melancthon, and soon afterwards Hebrew; he possessed no great compa.s.s of book learning, and never had any ambition to shine as a Latin poet. But he was astonishingly well read in the Holy Scriptures and some of the Fathers, and whatever he took up he worked out profoundly. He was unwearied in his care for the souls of his congregation, a zealous preacher, and a warm friend; he had a certain frank gaiety, together with a self-possessed demeanour, and much courteous tact; the certainty of his convictions appeared in his social intercourse, and gave a cheerful radiance to his countenance. He was irritable, and easily moved to tears; the trifling events of the day excited and disturbed him; but when he was called upon for any great effort, and had subdued the first agitation of his nerves--which, for instance, had overcome him on his first entrance at the Imperial Diet at Worms--he then attained a wonderful composure and confidence. He did not know what fear was; indeed, his lion nature took pleasure in the most dangerous situations. The malicious snares of his enemies, and the dangers to which his life was occasionally exposed, he seemed to consider hardly worth speaking about. The foundation of this more than human heroism--if one may venture to call it so--was the firm personal union between him and his G.o.d. For a long period, with smiles and inward gladness, he desired to serve truth and G.o.d by becoming a martyr. A fearful struggle still lay before him, but it was not caused by the opposition of men; he had to contend constantly for years against the devil himself; he overcame also the terror of h.e.l.l, which threatened to obscure his reason. Such a man might be destroyed, but could hardly be conquered.

The period of struggle which now follows, from the beginning of the dispute about indulgences to his departure from Wartburg, the time of his greatest triumph and greatest popularity, is that of which perhaps most is known, and yet it appears to us that his character even then is not rightly judged.

Nothing in this period is more remarkable than the way in which Luther gradually became estranged from the Romish Church. He was sober-minded and without ambition, and clung with deep reverence to the high idea of the Church, that community of believers fifteen hundred years old; yet in four short years he departed from the faith of his fathers, and shook himself free of the soil in which he had been so firmly rooted.

During this whole time he had to maintain the struggle alone, or at least with very few faithful confederates: after 1518 Melancthon was united with him. He overcame all the dangers of fierce encounters, not only against enemies, but against the anxious dissuasions of honest friends and patrons. Three times did the Romish party try to silence him by the authority of Cajetan, the persuasive eloquence of Milt.i.tz, and the unseasonable a.s.siduity of the pugnacious Eckius; three times he addressed the Pope in letters which are among the most valuable doc.u.ments of that century. Then came the separation: he was anathematized and excommunicated; he burnt--according to the old university custom--the enemy's challenge, and with it the possibility of return. With joyful confidence he went to Worms, where the princes of his nation were to decide whether he should die, or henceforth live amongst them, without Pope or Church, by the precepts of the Holy Scriptures alone.

When first he published in print the "Theses against Tetzel," he was astounded at the prodigious effect they produced in Germany, at the venomous hatred of his enemies, and at the tokens of friendly approbation which he received from all sides. Had he done anything so very unprecedented? The opinions he expressed were entertained by all the best men in the Church. When the Bishop of Brandenburg sent the Abbot of Lehnin to him, with a request that he would withdraw from the press his German sermon upon indulgences and grace, however right its contents might be, the poor Augustine friar was deeply moved that so great a man should hold such friendly and cordial intercourse with him, and he felt inclined to give up the publication rather than make himself a lion disturbing the Church. He zealously endeavoured to refute the report that the Elector had induced him to engage in the dispute with Tetzel. "They wish to involve the innocent Prince in the odium that belongs to me only." He desired as much as possible to preserve peace with Milt.i.tz before Cajetan; only one thing he would not do: he would not retract what he had said against the unchristian sale of indulgences. But this retraction was the only thing that the hierarchy required of him. Long did he continue to wish for peace, reconciliation, and a return to the peaceful occupations of his cell; but some false a.s.sertion of his opponents always reinflamed his blood, and every contradiction was followed by a new and sharper stroke of his weapons.

The heroic confidence of Luther is striking; even in his first letter to Leo X., dated the 30th May, 1518, he is still the faithful son of the Church; he still concludes by laying himself at the feet of the Pope; offers him his whole life and being, and promises to respect his voice as the voice of Christ, whose representative he is as sovereign of the Church. But in the midst of all this submission, which became him as a monastic brother, these impa.s.sioned words burst forth: "If I have deserved death, I do not refuse to die." And in the letter itself, how strong are the expressions with which he describes the insolence of the indulgence vendors! Honest, too, are his expressions of surprise at the effect of his Theses, which were difficult to understand, being, according to the old custom, composed of enigmatical and involved propositions. Good humour pervades the manly words, "What shall I do? I cannot retract. I am only an unlearned man, of narrow capacity, not highly cultivated, in a century full of intellect and taste, which might even put Cicero into a corner. But necessity has no law; the goose must cackle among the swans."

The following year all who esteemed Luther endeavoured to bring about a reconciliation. Staupitz, Spalatinus, and the Elector scolded, entreated, and urged. Even the Pope's chamberlain, Milt.i.tz, praised his opinions, whispered to him that he was quite right, entreated, drank with, and kissed him; though Luther indeed had reason to believe that the courtier had a secret commission to take him if possible a prisoner to Rome. The mediators happily hit on a point in which the refractory man heartily agreed with them; it was, that respect for the Church must be maintained and its unity not destroyed; Luther therefore promised to keep quiet and to leave the disputed points to the decision of three eminent bishops. Under these circ.u.mstances he was pressed to write a letter of apology to the Pope; but this letter of the 3rd of March, 1519, though undoubtedly approved by the mediators and wrung from the writer, shows the advance that Luther had already made. Of the humility which our theologians discover in it, there is little; it is, however, thoroughly cautious and diplomatic in its style. Luther regrets that what he has done to defend the honour of the Romish Church has been attributed to him as a want of respect; he promises henceforth to be silent on the subject of indulgences,--provided his opponents would be the same, and to address a letter to the people admonishing them loyally to obey the Church,[28] and not estrange themselves from it, because his opponents had been insolent and he himself harsh. But all these submissive words could not conceal the chasm which already separated his spirit from that of the Romish Church. With what cold irony he writes: "What shall I do, most holy father? All counsel fails me; I cannot bear your anger, and yet know not how to avoid it. It is desired that I should retract; if by this what they aim at could be effected, I would do so without delay, but the opposition of my opponents has spread my writings further than I had ever hoped, and they have laid too deep hold on the souls of men. There is now much talent, education, and free judgment in our Germany: were I to retract, I should, in the opinions of my Germans, cover the Church with still greater shame; but it is my opponents who have brought disgrace in Germany upon the Romish Church." He concludes his letter politely. "Do not doubt my readiness to do more, if it should be in my power. May Christ preserve your Holiness. M. Luther."

There is much concealed behind this measured reserve. Even if the conceited Eckius had not immediately after stirred up the indignation of the whole university of Wittenberg, this letter could hardly have availed at Rome as a sign of repentant submission.

The thunderbolt of excommunication was launched; Rome had spoken.

Luther, now restored to himself, wrote once more to the Pope; it was the celebrated letter, which, at the request of the indefatigable Milt.i.tz, he antedated, the 6th of September, 1520, in order to ignore the bull of excommunication. It is the n.o.ble expression of a determined spirit which contemplates its opponent from its elevated position, grand in its uprightness and n.o.ble in its sentiments! He speaks with sincere sympathy of the Pope, and of his difficult position; but it is the sympathy of a stranger: he still mourns over the Church, but it is evident that he has already pa.s.sed out of it. It is a parting letter written with cutting sharpness and confidence, but in a tone of quiet sorrow, as of a man separating himself from one whom he had once loved, but found unworthy.

Luther had in the course of these years become quite another man; he had acquired caution and confidence in intercourse with the great, and had gained a dear-bought insight into the political and private character of the governing powers. To the peaceful nature of his own sovereign nothing could be more painful than this bitter theological strife, which, though sometimes advantageous to him politically, always disquieted his spirit. Continual endeavours were made at court to restrain the Wittenbergers, but Luther was always beforehand with them.

Whenever the faithful Spalatinus warned him against the publication of some new aggressive writing, he received for answer, that it could not be helped; that the sheets were already printed, already in many hands, and could not be withdrawn.[29] In intercourse also with his opponents Luther acquired the confidence of an experienced combatant. He was very indignant when in the spring of 1518, Jerome Emser had inveigled him at Dresden to a supper, at which he was obliged to contend with angry enemies; and still more when he heard that a begging Dominican had listened at the door, and had the following day reported all over the town that Luther had been put down by the number of his opponents, and that the listener had with difficulty restrained himself from springing into the room and spitting in his face. At the first interview with Cajetan, he placed himself humbly at the feet of the Prince of the Church; but after the second, he permitted himself to say that the Cardinal was as well suited to his business as an a.s.s to play on the harp. He treated the polite Milt.i.tz with corresponding civility; the Romanist had hoped to tame the German Bear, but the courtier himself was soon put in his proper position, and was made use of by Luther; in the disputation at Leipsic with Eckius, the favourable impression produced by Luther's unembarra.s.sed, honest, and self-composed demeanour, was the best counterbalance to the self-sufficient confidence of his dexterous opponent.

But Luther's inward life demands a higher sympathy. It was a fearful period for him; he experienced together with a sense of elevation and victory, mortal anguish, tormenting doubts, and terrible temptations.

He, with a few others, stood against the whole of Christendom, always opposed by the most powerful and implacable enemies; and these comprised all that he had from his youth considered most holy. What if he should be in error? He was answerable for every soul that he carried away with him. And whither was he taking them? What was there beyond the pale of the Church?--Destruction, temporal and eternal ruin.

Opponents and timid friends cut his heart with reproaches and warnings, but incomparably greater was one pain, that secret gnawing and uncertainty which he dared not confess to any one. In prayer, indeed, he found peace; when his glowing soul soared up to G.o.d, he received abundance of strength, rest, and cheerfulness; but in his hours of relaxation, when his irritable spirit writhed under any obnoxious impressions, he felt himself embarra.s.sed, torn asunder, and under the interdict of another power which was inimical to his G.o.d. From his childhood he had known how busily evil spirits hover around men, and from the Scriptures he had learned that the devil labours to injure even the purest. On his own path lurked busy devils seeking to weaken and entice him, and to make countless numbers miserable through him. He saw them working in the angry mien of the Cardinal, the sneering countenance of Eckius, and indeed in his own soul; and he knew how powerful they were in Rome. In his youth he had been tormented by apparitions, and now they had returned to him. Out of the dark shadows of his study rose the tempter as a spectre, clutching at his reason, and when praying, the devil approached him, even under the form of the Saviour, radiant as king of heaven, with his five wounds as the old Church represented him. But Luther knew that Christ only approaches weak man in his word, or in humble form, as He hung upon the cross; so by a violent effort he collected himself and cried out to the apparition: "Away with thee, thou vile devil!" then the spectre vanished.[30] Thus again and again for years did the stout heart of the man struggle with wild excitement. It was a gloomy conflict between reason and delusion; he always came out as conqueror, the primitive strength of his healthy character gained the victory. In long hours of prayer the stormy waves of excitement were calmed; his solid understanding and his conscience led him always from doubt to security, and he felt this expansion of his soul as a gracious inspiration from his G.o.d. It was after such experiences, that he, who had been so anxious and timid, became firm as steel, indifferent to the judgment of men, intrepid and inexorable.

He appeared quite another person in his conflicts with earthly enemies; in these he almost always showed the confidence of superiority, and especially in his literary disputes.

The activity he displayed from this period as a writer was gigantic. Up to the year 1517, he had published little; but after that he became not only the most copious, but the most popular writer of Germany. By the energy of his style, the power of his arguments, the fire and vehemence of his convictions, he carried all before him. No one had as yet spoken with such power to the people. His language adapted itself to every voice and every key; sometimes brief, terse, and sharp as steel; at others, with the rich fullness of a mighty stream his words flowed upon the people; and a figurative expression or a striking comparison made the most difficult things comprehensible. He had a wonderful creative power, and pre-eminent facility in the use of language; when he took his pen, his spirit seemed to emanc.i.p.ate itself: one perceives in his sentences the cheerful warmth that animated him, and they overflow with the magic creations of the heart. This power is very visible in his attacks upon individual opponents, and was closely allied to rudeness, which caused much perplexity to his admiring cotemporaries. He liked also to play with his opponents: his fancy clothed them in a grotesque mask, and he rallied, derided, and hit at this fantastic figure, in expressions by no means measured, and not always very becoming. But the good humour which shone out from the midst of these insults had generally a conciliatory effect, though not upon those whom they touched. Scarcely ever do we perceive any small enmities, but frequently inexhaustible kindness of heart. Sometimes forgetting the dignity of the reformer, he played antics like a German peasant child, or rather like a mischievous hobgoblin. How he buffeted his adversaries! now with the blows of an angry giant's club, now with the rod of a buffoon. He delighted in transforming their names into something ridiculous; thus they were known in the Wittenberger's circle by the names of beasts and fools: Eckius became Dr. Geek,[31]

Murner[32] was called Katerkopf[33] and Krallen; Emser, who had his crest (the head of a horned goat) engraved on every controversial writing, was insulted by being changed into Bock;[34] the Latin name of the apostate Humanitarian, Cochlaus, was translated back into German, and Luther greeted him as Schnecke (the snail) with impenetrable armour, and--it grieves one to say--sometimes as Rotzloffel.[35] Still more annoying, and even shocking in the eyes of his cotemporaries, was the vehement recklessness with which he broke forth against hostile princes; the Duke George of Saxony, cousin to his own sovereign, was the only one he was occasionally obliged to spare. The profligate despotism of Henry VIII. of England was abhorrent to the soul of the German reformer, who abused him terribly, and he dealt with Henry of Brunswick as a naughty school-boy. It cannot, we fear, be denied that it was this alloy to the moral dignity of his character that acted as the salt, which made his writings so irresistible to the earnest Germans of the sixteenth century.

In the autumn of 1517, he had a controversy with the reprobate Dominican; in the winter of 1520, he burnt the papal bull; in the spring of 1518, he still laid himself at the feet of the Pope as the vicegerent of Christ; but in the spring of 1521, he declared before the Emperor, princes, and papal nuncios at the Imperial Diet at Worms, that he did not trust either in the Pope or the councils alone, but only in the witness of the Holy Scripture and the convictions of his own reason. He had now become a free man, but the papal interdict and the ban of the empire hung over him; he was inwardly free, but he was free like the wild beast of the forest, with the bloodthirsty hounds giving tongue after him. He had now arrived at the acme of his life: the powers against which he had revolted, and even the thoughts which he had excited in the people, began now to work against his life and doctrines.

It appears that already at Worms, Luther was warned that he must disappear for a time. The habits of the Franconian knights, among whom he had many faithful adherents, gave rise to the idea of carrying him off by armed men. The Elector Frederic planned the abduction with his confidential advisers; yet it was quite in the style of this Prince to arrange that he himself should not know the place of his confinement, that in case of necessity he might be able to affirm his ignorance. It was not easy to make this plan acceptable to Luther, for his valiant heart had long overcome all earthly fear, and with ecstatic pleasure, in which there was much enthusiasm and some humour, he watched the attempts of the Romanists who wished to take away his life; this, however, was under the disposal of another and higher power, which spoke through his mouth.[36] He unwillingly submitted; but however cleverly the abduction was arranged, it was not easy to keep the secret. In the beginning, Melancthon was the only one of the Wittenbergers who knew the place of Luther's concealment; but Luther was not the man to accommodate himself, even to the most well-meaning intrigue, and soon messengers were actively pa.s.sing to and fro between the Wartburg and Wittenberg, so that whatever circ.u.mspection was employed in the care of the letters, it was difficult to prevent the spreading of reports. Luther in the castle, learned what was going on in the great world sooner than the Wittenbergers; he received accounts of all the news of his university, and endeavoured to raise the courage of his friends and to guide their politics. It is touching to see how he tried to strengthen Melancthon, whose unpractical nature caused him to feel bitterly the absence of his stronger friend. "Things must go on without me," Luther writes to him. "Only take courage and you will no longer need me; if, when I come out, I cannot return to Wittenberg, I must go out into the world. You are the men to maintain, without me, the cause of the Lord against the devil." His letters are dated from the "aerial regions," from "Patmos," from the "wilderness," "from among the birds who sing sweetly among the branches, and praise G.o.d day and night with all their powers." Once he endeavoured to be cunning: writing to Spalatinus, he enclosed a crafty letter, saying, that it was believed without foundation that he was at Wartburg. That he was living among faithful brothers, and that it was remarkable no one thought of Bohemia; it concluded with a not ill-natured thrust at Duke George of Saxony, his keenest enemy. This letter, Spalatinus, with pretended negligence, was to lose, that it might come into the hands of his enemies; but in such diplomacy Luther was by no means consistent, for no sooner was his lion nature roused by any intelligence, than he made a hasty decision to burst forth to Erfurt or Wittenberg. He bore with difficulty the tedium of his residence; he was treated with the greatest consideration by the commander of the castle, and this care showed itself chiefly, as was then the custom, in providing him with the best food and drink. The good living, the absence of excitement, the fresh air on horseback, which the theologian enjoyed, worked both on soul and body. He had brought with him from Worms, a bodily ailment from which arose hours of dark despondency, which made him incapable of work.

Two days successively he went out hunting; but his heart was with the poor hares and partridges, which were hunted by a host of men and dogs into a net. "Innocent little creatures! thus do the papists hunt." To preserve the life of a little hare he concealed it in the sleeve of his coat; then came the hounds and broke the limbs of the little animal within the protecting coat. "Thus does Satan gnash his teeth against the souls I seek to save." Luther had enough to do to defend himself and his from Satan; he had thrown off all the authorities of the Church, and now stood shuddering alone, only one thing remained to him, the Scriptures. The old Church had been continually expounding Christianity; traditions which were concurrent with the Scriptures, councils and decrees of the Pope, had kept the faith in constant agitation. Luther placed in its stead the word of Scripture, which while it brought deliverance from a wilderness of erroneous soulless conceptions, gave threatenings of other dangers. What was the Bible?

There were about two centuries between the oldest and the newest writings of the holy book. The New Testament itself was not written by Christ, nor even always by those who had received his holy teaching from himself; it had been compiled long after his death, portions of it might have been delivered incorrectly; all was written in a foreign language that Germans could with difficulty understand. Expounders of the greatest discernment were in danger of interpreting falsely if not enlightened by the grace of G.o.d as the Apostles had been. The old Church had brought to its a.s.sistance that sacrament which gave to the priest's office this enlightenment; indeed the holy father a.s.sumed so much of the omnipotence of G.o.d, that he considered himself in the right even where his will was contrary to the Scripture. The reformer had nothing but his weak human understanding and his prayers.

It was indeed imperative that Luther should use his reason, for a certain degree of criticism upon the Holy Scriptures was necessary. He did not set an equal value upon all the books of the New Testament: it is known that he had doubts about the Revelations of St. John, and he did not much value the Epistle of St. James; but objections to particular parts never disturbed his faith in the whole; his belief in the verbal inspiration of the Holy Scriptures (with the exception of a few books) could not be shaken; they were to him what was dearest on earth, the groundwork of his whole knowledge; he was so thoroughly imbued with their spirit, that he lived as it were under their shadow.

The more deeply he felt his responsibility, the more intense was the ardour with which he clung to the Scriptures.[37] A powerful instinct for what was rational and judicious helped him over many dangers; his penetration had nothing of the hair-splitting sophistry of the old teachers; he despised unnecessary subtleties, and with admirable tact he left undecided what appeared to him not essential. But if he was not to become a frantic or G.o.dless man, nothing remained to him but to ground his new doctrines on the words which were spoken and written fifteen hundred years before him, and he fell in some case into what his opponent Eckius called "Black-letter style."

Under these restraints his method was formed. If he had a question to solve, he collected all the pa.s.sages in Scripture which appeared to him to contain an answer; he examined each pa.s.sage to understand their mutual bearing, and thus arrived at his conclusions. By this mode of proceeding, he brought the Scriptures within the compa.s.s of an ordinary understanding; for example, in the year 1522, he undertook, out of the Holy Scriptures, to place marriage on a new moral foundation; he severely criticised the eighteen reasons given by ecclesiastical law, forbidding and dissolving marriages, and condemned the unworthy favouring of the rich in preference to the poor.

It was this same system which made him so pertinacious in his transactions with the Reformers in the year 1529, when he wrote on the table before him: "This _is_ my body;" and looked gloomily on the tears and outstretched hands of Zwinglius. Never had that formidable man shown more powerful convictions, convictions won in vehement wrestling with his doubts and the devil. It may be considered by some as an imperfect system; but there was a genial strength in it, that made his own view more available to the cultivation and heart-cravings of his time, than even he himself antic.i.p.ated.

Besides these great trials, the proscribed monk at the Wartburg was exposed to smaller temptations: he had long, by almost superhuman spiritual activity, overcome, what great self-distrust led him to consider as merely sensual inclinations; still nature stirred powerfully in him, and he many times begged of his dear Melancthon to pray for him concerning this.

It happened providentially, that just at this time at Wittenberg the restless spirit of Karlstadt took up the subject of the marriage of priests, in a pamphlet in which he decided that vows of celibacy were not binding upon priests and monks. The Wittenbergers were in general agreed on this question, especially Melancthon, who was perfectly unbia.s.sed, as he himself had never entered into holy orders, and had been married two years.

Thus a web of thoughts and moral problems was cast from the outer world upon Luther's soul, the threads of which enclosed the whole of his later life. Whatever joy of heart and earthly happiness was vouchsafed to him henceforth, rested on the answer to this question. It was the happiness of his home that made it possible for him to bear the trials of his later years; by that the full blossom of his rich heart was first unfolded. So graciously did Providence send to him, just in the time of his loneliness, the message which was to bind him anew, and more firmly than ever to his people. Again, the way in which Luther treated this problem is quite characteristic; his pious spirit and the conservative tendency of his character strove against the hasty and superficial way in which Karlstadt reasoned. It may be a.s.sumed, that his own feelings made him suspicious as to whether this critical question was not made use of by the devil, to tempt the children of G.o.d; and yet the constraint upon the poor monks in the monasteries grieved him much. He examined the Scriptures, and easily made up his mind as to the marriage of priests; but there was nothing in the Bible about monks: "Where the Scripture is silent, man is unsafe." It appeared to him, withal, a laughable idea that his friends could marry, and he wrote to the cautious Spalatinus: "Good G.o.d, our Wittenbergers wish also to give wives to the monks! now they shall not so enc.u.mber me;" and he warns him ironically: "Have a care that you also do not get married;" yet this problem occupied him incessantly. Men live fast in great times. Gradually, by Melancthon's reasoning, and we may add by fervent prayer, he arrived at certainty. What, almost unknown to himself, brought about the decision, was the perception that it had become wise and necessary for the moral foundation of social life, that the monasteries should be opened. For nearly three months this question had been struggling in his mind; on the 1st November, 1521, he wrote the afore-mentioned letter to his father.

Unbounded was the effect of his words on the people; they produced a general excitement: out of almost all the cloister doors monks and nuns slipped away; it was at first singly and by stealth, but soon whole monasteries and convents dissolved themselves. When Luther in the following spring returned to Wittenberg, his heart full of anxious cares, the fugitive monks and nuns caused him a great deal of trouble.

Secret letters were forwarded to him from all quarters, chiefly from excited nuns who had been placed as children in convents by harsh parents, and being now without money or protection, looked to the great Reformer for help; it was not unnatural that they should throng to Wittenberg. Nine nuns came from the foundation for n.o.ble ladies at Nimpschen, amongst them were a Staupitz, two Zeschau, and Catherine von Bora; besides these there were sixteen other nuns to take care of, and so forth. He was much grieved for these poor people, and hastened to place them under the protection of worthy families. Sometimes, indeed, it became too much of a good thing, and the crowd of runaway monks especially annoyed him. He complains: "They desire immediately to marry, and are unfit for every kind of work." He gave great scandal by his bold solution of this difficult question; and there was much that was very painful to his feelings; for amongst those who now returned in tumult to social life, though there were some high-minded men, others were coa.r.s.e and dissolute. Yet all this did not for one moment make him turn aside; he became, according to his nature, more decided from opposition. When, in 1524, he published the history of the sufferings of a nun, Florentina von Oberweimar, he repeated in the dedication what he had so often preached: "G.o.d often testifies in the Scriptures that He desires no compulsory service, and no one can become his, who is not so in heart and soul. G.o.d help us! Is there nothing in this that speaks to us? Have we not ears and understanding? I say it again, G.o.d will not have compulsory service; I say it a third time, I say it a hundred thousand times, G.o.d will have no compulsory service."[38]