Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family Part 43

I remember especially, in one village, a fine-looking old peasant farmer taking me to an inner room where hung a portrait of Luther, encircled with a glory, with a curtain before it.

"See!" he said. "The lord of that castle," and he pointed to a fortress on an opposite height, "has wrought me and mine many a wrong. Two of my sons have perished in his selfish feuds, and his huntsmen lay waste my fields as they choose in the chase; yet, if I shoot a deer, I may be thrown into the castle dungeon, as mine have been before. But their reign is nearly over now. I saw _that man_ at Worms. I heard him speak, bold as a lion, for the truth, before emperor, princes, and prelates.

G.o.d has sent us the deliverer; and the reign of righteousness will come at last, when every man shall have his due."

"Friend," I said, with an aching heart, "the Deliverer came fifteen hundred years ago, but the reign of justice has not come to the world yet. The Deliverer was crucified, and his followers since then have suffered, not reigned."

"G.o.d is patient," he said, "and _we_ have been patient long, G.o.d knows; but I trust the time is come at last."

"But the redemption Dr. Luther proclaims," I said, gently, "is liberty from a worse bondage than that of the n.o.bles, and it is a liberty no tyrant, no dungeon, can deprive us of--the liberty of the sons of G.o.d;"--and he listened earnestly while I spoke to him of justification, and of the suffering, redeeming Lord. But at the end he said--

"Yes, that is good news. But I trust Dr. Luther will avenge many a wrong among us yet. They say he was a peasant's son like me."

If I were Dr. Luther, and knew that the wistful eyes of the oppressed and sorrowful throughout the land were turned to me, I should be tempted to say--

"Lord, let me die before these oppressed and burdened hearts learn how little I can help them!"

For verily there is much evil done under the sun. Yet as truly there is healing for every disease, remedy for every wrong, and rest from every burden, in the tidings Dr. Luther brings. But remedy of a different kind, I fear, from what too many fondly expect!

It is strange, also, to see how, in these few weeks, the wildest tales have sprung up and spread in all directions about Dr. Luther's disappearance. Some say he has been secretly murdered, and that his wounded corpse has been seen; others, that he was borne away bleeding through the forest to some dreadful doom; while others boldly a.s.sert that he will re-appear at the head of a band of liberators, who will go through the length and breadth of the land, redressing every wrong, and punis.h.i.+ng every wrong-doer.

Truly, if a few weeks can throw such a haze around facts, what would a century without a written record have done for Christianity; or what would that record itself have been without inspiration?

The country was in some parts very disturbed. In Alsace I came on a secret meeting of the peasants, who have bound themselves with the most terrible oaths to wage war to the death against the n.o.bles.

More than once I was stopped by a troop of hors.e.m.e.n near a castle, and my wares searched, to see if they belonged to the merchants of some city with whom the knight of the castle was at feud; and on one of these occasions it might have fared ill with me if a troop of Landsknechts in the service of the empire had not appeared in time to rescue me and my companions.

Yet everywhere the name of Luther was of equal interest. The peasants believed he would rescue them from the tyranny of the n.o.bles; and many of the knights spoke of him as the a.s.sertor of German liberties against a foreign yoke. More than one poor parish priest welcomed him as the deliverer from the avarice of the great abbeys or the prelates. Thus, in farm-house and hut, in castle and parsonage, I and my books found many a cordial welcome. And all I could do was to sell the books, and tell all who would listen, that the yoke Luther's words were powerful to break was the yoke of the devil the prince of all oppressors, and that the freedom he came to republish was freedom from the tyranny of sin and self.

My true welcome, however, the one which rejoiced my heart, was when any said, as many did, on sick-beds, in lowly and n.o.ble homes, and in monasteries--

"Thank G.o.d, these words are in our hearts already. They have taught us the way to G.o.d; they _have_ brought us peace and freedom."

Or when others said--

"I must have that book. This one and that one that I know is another man since he read Dr. Luther's words."

But if I was scarcely prepared for the interest felt in Dr. Luther in our own land, true German that he is, still less did I expect that his fame would have reached to Paris, and even further.

The night before I reached this city I was weary with a long day's walk in the dust and heat, and had fallen asleep on a bench in the garden outside a village inn, under the shade of a trellised vine, leaving my pack partly open beside me. When I awoke, a grave and dignified-looking man, who, from the richness of his dress and arms, seemed to be a n.o.bleman, and, from the cut of his slashed doubtlet and mantle, a Spaniard, sat beside me, deeply engaged in reading one of my books. I did not stir at first, but watched him in silence. The book he held was a copy of Luther's Commentary on the Galatians, in Latin.

In a few minutes I moved, and respectfully saluted him.

"Is this book for sale?" he asked

I said it was and named the price.

He immediately laid down twice the sum, saying, "Give a copy to some one who cannot buy."

I ventured to ask if he had seen it before.

"I have," he said. "Several copies were sent by a Swiss printer, Frobenius, to Castile. And I saw it before at Venice. It is prohibited in both Castile and Venice now. But I have always wished to possess a copy that I might judge for myself. Do you know Dr. Luther?" he asked, as he moved away.

"I have known and reverenced him for many years," I said.

"They say his life is blameless, do they not?" he asked.

"Even his bitterest enemies confess it to be so," I replied.

"He spoke like a brave man before the Diet," he resumed; "gravely and quietly, as true men speak who are prepared to abide by their words. A n.o.ble of Castile could not have spoken with more dignity than that peasant's son. The Italian priests thought otherwise; but the oratory which melts girls into tears from pulpits is not the eloquence for the councils of men. That monk had learned his oratory in a higher school.

If you ever see Dr. Luther again," he added, "tell him that some Spaniards, even in the Emperor's court, wished him well."

And here in Paris I find a little band of devout and learned men, Lefevre, Farel, and Briconnet, bishop of Meaux, actively employed in translating and circulating the writings of Luther and Melancthon. The truth in them, they say, they had learned before from the book of G.o.d itself, namely, justification through faith in a crucified Saviour leading to a life devoted to him. But jealous as the French are of admitting the superiority of anything foreign, and contemptuously as they look on us unpolished Germans, the French priests welcome Luther as a teacher and a brother, and are as eager to hear all particulars of his life as his countrymen in every town and quiet village throughout Germany.

They tell me also that the king's own sister, the beautiful and learned d.u.c.h.ess Margaret of Valois, reads Dr. Luther's writings, and values them greatly.

Indeed, I sometimes think if he had carried out the intention he formed some years since, of leaving Wittemberg for Paris, he would have found a n.o.ble sphere of action here. The people are so frank in speech, so quick in feeling and perception; and their bright keen wit cuts so much more quickly to the heart of a fallacy than our sober, plodding, Northern intellect.

BASEL.

Before I left Ebernburg, the knight Ulrich von Hutten had taken a warm interest in my expedition; had especially recommended me to seek out Erasmus, if ever I reached Switzerland; and had himself placed some copies of Erasmus' sermons, "Praise of folly," among my books.

Personally I feel a strong attachment to that brave knight. I can never forget the generous letter he wrote to Luther before his appearance at the Diet:--"_The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble: the name of the G.o.d of Jacob defend thee._ O my beloved Luther, my reverend father, fear not; be strong. Fight valiantly for Christ. As for me, I also will fight bravely. Would to G.o.d I might see how they knit their brows.... May Christ preserve you."

Yes, to see the baffled enemies knit their brows as they did then, would have been a triumph to the impetuous soldier, but at the time he was prohibited from approaching the Court. Luther's courageous and n.o.ble defence filled him with enthusiastic admiration. He declared the doctor to be a greater soldier than any of the knights. When he heard of Dr.

Luther's disappearance he would have collected a band of daring spirits like himself, and scoured the country in search of him. Hutten's objects were high and unselfish. He had no mean and petty ambitions. With sword and pen he had contended against oppression and hypocrisy. To him the Roman Court was detestable, chiefly as a foreign yoke; the corrupt priesthood, as a domestic usurpation. He had a high ideal of knighthood, and believed that his order, enlightened by learning, and inspired by a free and lofty faith, might emanc.i.p.ate Germany and Christendom. Personal danger he despised, and personal aims.

Yet with all his fearlessness and high aspirations, I scarcely think he hoped himself to be the hero of his ideal chivalry. The self-control of the pure true knight was too little his. In his visions of a Christendom from which falsehood and avarice were to be banished, and where authority was to reside in an order of ideal knights, Franz von Sickingen, the brave good lord of Ebernburg, with his devout wife Hedwiga, was to raise the standard, around which Ulrich and all the true men in the land were to rally. Luther, Erasmus, and Sickingen, he thought--the types of the three orders, learning, knighthood, and priesthood,--might regenerate the world.

Erasmus had begun the work with unveiling the light in the sanctuaries of learning. Luther had carried it on by diffusing the light among the people. The knights must complete it by forcibly scattering the powers of darkness. Conflict is Erasmus' detestation. It is Luther's necessity.

It is Hutten's delight.

I did not, however, expect much sympathy in my work from Erasmus. It seemed to me that Hutten, admiring his clear, luminous genius, attributed to him the fire of his own warm and courageous heart.

However, I intended to seek him out at Basel.

Circ.u.mstances saved me the trouble.

As I was entering the city, with my pack nearly empty, hoping to replenish it from the presses of Frobenius, an elderly man, with a stoop in his shoulders, giving him the air of a student, ambled slowly past me, clad in a doctor's gown and hat, edged with a broad border of fur.

The keen small dark eyes surveyed me and my pack for a minute, and then reining in his horse he joined me, and said, in a soft voice and courtly accent, "We are of the same profession, friend. We manufacture, and you sell. What have you in your pack?"

I took out three of my remaining volumes. One was Luther's "Commentary on the Galatians;" the others, his "Treatise on the Lord's Prayer," and his "Letter to the German n.o.bles."

The rider's brow darkened slightly, and he eyed me suspiciously.

"Men who supply ammunition to the people in times of insurrection seldom do it at their own risk," he said. "Young man, you are on a perilous mission, and would do well to count the cost."

"I have counted the cost, sir," I said, "and I willingly brave the peril."