Luther and the Reformation Part 8

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 doc.u.ment--_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.[19]

FOOTNOTES:

[18] "Never before was the human mind more prolific." "Luther holds a high and glorious place in German literature." "In his ma.n.u.scripts we nowhere discover the traces of fatigue or irritation, no embarra.s.sment 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._

[19] "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 G.o.d, 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.

Mosella.n.u.s, 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."

Mosella.n.u.s 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 cla.s.ses.

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.[20] "I have no pleasure in any man," said he, "who despises music. It is no invention of ours; it is the gift of G.o.d. 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 gus.h.i.+ng of the waters from the smitten rock of h.o.r.eb to inspirit and refresh G.o.d'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.[21]

FOOTNOTES:

[20] Mattahus Ratzenberger, in a pa.s.sage 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, _Verb.u.m caro factum est_, _In principio erat verb.u.m_; at Easter, _Christus resurgens ex mortuis_, _Vita sanctorum_, _Victimae 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.

[21] 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 1523 for their faithful confession of the evangelical doctrines. A translation of a part of this composition is given in D'Aubigne'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 G.o.d.

"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 "n.o.body excelled him in philosophy and theology, and n.o.body 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 sh.e.l.l 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."[22] 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 mult.i.tude." His a.s.sociates 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 sh.e.l.ls and pebbles on the sh.o.r.e, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before him, has been much cited and lauded as an ill.u.s.tration 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 G.o.d'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 const.i.tute 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 aesop, a Chrysostom and a Savonarola, a Shakespeare and a Whitefield, all condensed in one.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] Froude supplemented.

HIS ALLEGED COa.r.s.eNESS.

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."[23]

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:

[23] "It must be observed that the coa.r.s.e 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."--_Cyclopaedia of Soc. for Diffus. of Useful Knowledge._

HIS MARVELOUS ACHIEVEMENTS.