Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family Part 33

As we returned, however, the crowd had increased, and the debate seemed to be becoming warm among some of them. One of the students was translating the Latin into German for the benefit of the unlearned, and we paused to listen.

What he read seemed to me very true, but not at all remarkable. We had often heard Dr. Luther say and even preach similar things. At the moment we came up the words the student was reading were,--

"It is a great error for one to think to make satisfaction for his sins, in that G.o.d always forgives gratuitously and from his boundless grace, requiring nothing in return but holy living."

This sentence I remember distinctly, because it was so much like what we had heard him preach. Other propositions followed, such as that it was very doubtful if the indulgences could deliver souls from purgatory, and that it was better to give alms than to buy indulgences. But why these statements should collect such a crowd, and excite such intense interest, I could not quite understand, unless it was because they were in Latin.

One sentence, I observed, aroused very mingled feelings in the crowd. It was the declaration that the Holy Scriptures alone could settle any controversy, and that all the scholastic teachers together could not give authority to one doctrine.

The students and many of the citizens received this announcement with enthusiastic applause, and some of the professors testified a quiet approval of it; but others of the doctors shook their heads, and a few retired at once, murmuring angrily as they went.

At the close came a declaration by Dr. Luther, that "whatever some unenlightened and morbid people might say, he was no heretic."

"Why should Dr. Luther think it necessary to conclude with a declaration that he is no heretic?" I said to Gottfried as we walked home. "Can anything be more full of respect for the Pope and the Church than many of these theses are? And why should they excite so much attention? Dr.

Luther says no more than so many of us think!"

"True, Else," replied Gottfried, gravely; "but to know how to say what other people only think, is what makes men poets and sages; and to dare to say what others only dare to think, makes men martyrs or reformers, or both."

_November_ 20.

It is wonderful the stir these theses make. Christopher cannot get them printed fast enough. Both the Latin and German printing-presses are engaged, for they have been translated, and demands come for them from every part of Germany.

Dr. Tetzel, they say, is furious, and many of the prelates are uneasy as to the result; the new bishop has dissuaded Dr. Luther from publis.h.i.+ng an explanation of them. It is reported that the Elector Frederick it not quite pleased, fearing the effect on the new university, still in its infancy.

Students, however, are crowding to the town, and to Dr. Luther's lectures, more than ever. He is the hero of the youth of Germany.

But none are more enthusiastic about him than our grandmother. She insisted on being taken to church on All Saints' Day, and tottering up the aisle, took her place immediately under Dr. Luther's pulpit, facing the congregation.

She had eyes or ears for none but him. When he came down the pulpit stairs she grasped his hand, and faltered out a broken blessing. And after she came home she sat a long time in silence, occasionally brus.h.i.+ng away tears.

When Gottfried and I took leave for the night, she held one of our hands in each of hers, and said,--

"Children! be braver than I have been; that man preaches the truth for which my husband died. G.o.d sends him to you. Be faithful to him. Take heed that you forsake him not. It is not given to every one as to me to have the light they forsook in youth restored to them in old age. To me his words are like voices from the dead. They are worth dying for."

My mother is not so satisfied. She likes what Dr. Luther says, but she is afraid what Aunt Agnes might think of it. She thinks he speaks too violently sometimes. She does not like any one to be pained. She cannot herself much like the way they sell the indulgences, but she hopes Dr.

Tetzel means well, and she has no doubt that the Pope knows best; and she is convinced that in their hearts all good people mean the same, only she is afraid, in the heat of discussion, every one will go further than any one intends, and so there will be a great deal of bad feeling.

She thought it was quite right of Dr. Luther quietly to admonish any of his penitents who were imagining they could be saved without repentance; but why he should excite all the town in this way by these theses she could not understand; especially on All Saints' Day, when so many strangers came from the country, and the holy relics were exhibited, and every one ought to be absorbed with their devotions.

"Ah, little mother," said my father, "women are too tender-hearted for ploughmen's work. You could never bear to break up the clods, and tear up all the pretty wild flowers. But when the harvest comes we will set you to bind up the sheaves, or to glean beside the reapers. No rough hands of men will do that so well as yours."

And Gottfried said his vow as doctor of divinity makes it as much Dr.

Luther's plain duty to teach true divinity, as his priestly vows oblige him to guard his flock from error and sin. Gottfried says we have fallen on stormy times. For him that may be best, and by his side all is well for me. Besides, I am accustomed to rough paths. But when I look on our little tender Gretchen, as her dimpled cheek rests flushed with sleep on her pillow, I cannot help wis.h.i.+ng the battle might not begin in her time.

Dr. Luther counted the cost before he fixed these theses to the church door. It was this which made him do it so secretly, without consulting any of his friends. He knew there was risk in it, and he n.o.bly resolved not to involve any one else--Elector, professor, or pastor--in the danger he incurred without hesitation for himself.

_December_, 1517.

In one thing we all agreed, and that is in our delight in Dr. Luther's lectures on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians. Gottfried heard them and took notes, and reported them to us in my father's house. We gather around him, all of us, in the winter evenings, while he reads those inspiring words to us. Never, I think, were words like them. Yesterday he was reading to us, for the twentieth time, what Dr. Luther said on the words, "Who loved me, and gave himself for me."

"Read with vehemency," he says, "those words 'me,' and 'for me.' Print this 'me' in thy heart, not doubting that thou art of the number to whom this 'me' belongeth; also, that Christ hath not only loved Peter and Paul, and given himself for them, but that the same grace also which is comprehended in this 'me,' as well pertaineth and cometh unto us as unto them. For as we cannot deny that we are all sinners, all lost; so we cannot deny that Christ died for our sins. Therefore, when I feel and confess myself to be a sinner, why should I not say that I am made righteous through the righteousness of Christ, especially when I hear He loved me and gave himself for me?"

And then my mother asked for the pa.s.sages she most delights in: "O Christ, I am thy sin, thy curse, thy wrath of G.o.d, thy h.e.l.l; and contrariwise, thou art my righteousness, my blessing, my life, my grace of G.o.d, my heaven."

And again, when he speaks of Christ being "made a curse for us, the unspotted and undefiled Lamb of G.o.d wrapped in our sins, G.o.d not laying our sins upon us, but upon his Son, that he, bearing the punishment thereof, might be our peace, that by his stripes, we might be healed."

And again:--

"Sin is a mighty conqueror, which devoureth all mankind, learned and unlearned, holy, wise, and mighty men. This tyrant flieth upon Christ, and will needs swallow him up as he doth all other. But he seeth not that Christ is a person of invincible and everlasting righteousness.

Therefore in this combat sin must needs be vanquished and killed; and righteousness must overcome, live, and reign. So in Christ all sin is vanquished, killed, and buried; and righteousness remaineth a conqueror, and reigneth for ever.

"In like manner Death, which is an omnipotent queen and empress of the whole world, killing kings, princes, and all men, doth mightily encounter with Life, thinking utterly to overcome it and to swallow it up. But because the Life was immortal, therefore when it was overcome, it nevertheless overcame, vanquis.h.i.+ng and killing Death. Death, therefore, through Christ, is vanquished and abolished, so that now it is but a painted death, which, robbed of its sting, can no more hurt those that believe in Christ, who is become the death of death.

"So the curse hath the like conflict with the blessing, and would condemn and bring it to nought; but it cannot. For the blessing is divine and everlasting, therefore the curse must needs give place. For if the blessing in Christ could be overcome, then would G.o.d himself be overcome. But this is impossible; therefore Christ, the power of G.o.d, righteousness, blessing, grace, and life, overcometh and destroyeth those monsters, sin, death, and the curse, without war and weapons, in this our body, so that they can no more hurt those that believe."

Such truths are indeed worth battling for; but who, save the devil, would war against them? I wonder what Fritz would think of it all.

WITTEMBERG, _February_, 1518.

Christopher returned yesterday evening from the market-place, where the students have been burning Tetzel's theses, which he wrote in answer to Dr. Luther's. Tetzel hides behind the papal authority, and accuses Dr.

Luther of a.s.sailing the Holy Father himself.

But Dr. Luther says nothing shall ever make him a heretic; that he will recognise the voice of the Pope as the voice of Christ himself. The students kindled this conflagration in the market-place entirely on their own responsibility. They are full of enthusiasm for Dr. Martin, and of indignation against Tetzel and the Dominicans.

"Who can doubt," said Christopher, "how the conflict will end, between all learning and honesty and truth on the one side, and a few contemptible avaricious monks on the other?" And he proceeded to describe to us the conflagration and the sayings of the students with as much exultation as if it had been a victory over Tetzel and the indulgence-mongers themselves.

"But it seems to me," I said, "that Dr. Luther is not so much at ease about it as you are. I have noticed lately that he looks grave, and at times very sad. He does not seem to think the victory won."

"Young soldiers," said Gottfried, "on the eve of their first battle may be as blithe as on the eve of a tourney. Veterans are grave before the battle. Their courage comes _with_ the conflict. It will be thus, I believe, with Dr. Luther. For surely the battle is coming. Already some of his old friends fall off. They say the censor at Rome, Prierias, has condemned and written against his theses."

"But," rejoined Christopher, "they say also that Pope Leo praised Dr.

Luther's genius, and said it was only the envy of the monks which found fault with him. Dr. Luther believes the Pope only needs to learn the truth about these indulgence-mongers to disown them at once."

"Honest men believe all men honest until they are proved dishonest,"

said Gottfried drily; "but the Roman court is expensive and the indulgences are profitable."

This morning our grandmother asked nervously what was the meaning of the shouting she had heard yesterday in the market-place, and the glare of fire she had seen, and the crackling?

"Only Tetzel's lying theses," said Christopher. She seemed relieved.

"In my early days," she said, "I learned to listen too eagerly to sounds like that. But in those times they burned other things than books or papers in the market-places."

"Tetzel threatens to do so again," said Christopher.

"No doubt they will, if they can," she replied, and relapsed into silence.