LUTHER AND THE REFORMATION. IN Augsburg Luther had contended with the proud prince of the Church of Rome; at Leipzic he was to defend his doctrine against the men of the schools in learned debate. On this occasion he spoke the decisive word to Dr. Eck: "I do not recognize any man as the head of the Church militant but Jesus Christ only, on the ground of Holy Scriptures." "For Luther, like the true Samson, pulled down the pillar on which the Romans rested the power of the pope, and said, 'that the text on which Dr. Eck relied-Thou art Peter, and on this rock will I build my Church-did not refer to St. Peter, still less to any of his successors, but to the Lord Jesus Christ, who was the true rock on which Christianity might stand against all the attacks of hell.'" (Mathesius.) The two principal warriors, Luther and Eck, stand opposite each other in the hall of the Pleisenburg, the first advancing boldly to the attack, the other dexterously turning aside each blow, but cunningly enticing his opponent to further advances. At Luther's side sits the youthful Melancthon, in silent, anxious thought, while the more lively Karlstadt seeks to assist his own weak memory by referring to books. In the centre of the hall Duke George of Saxony is listening attentively to the disputants, until, at the words of Luther, "that even some of the propositions of Huss and of the Bohemians were perfectly Christian and evangelical," he angrily cries out, "Plague take it!" At his feet sits his one-eyed fool, wildly staring at Dr. Eck. Artists and poets are fond of introducing into matters of solemn import, agreeable equally to legend as to history, some amusing trait of human folly, as in this case, into the midst of the princes and warriors of the Church, the court-fool of an earthly prince. LUTHER BURNS THE PAPAL BULL NEITHER cardinals nor doctors, neither negotiations nor disputations, could adjust the quarrel. A rupture ensued: Rome condemned the Wittemberg doctor; the doctor solemnly declared the Roman judgment to be naught. When the bull of condemnation reached Germany, the whole people was in commotion. At Erfurth the students took it out of the booksellers' shops, tore it in pieces, and threw it into the river, with the poor pun, "A bubble (bulla) it is, and as a bubble so it should swim." Luther instantly published his pamphlet, Against VOL. V.-9 the Execrable Bull of Antichrist. On December 10, 1520, he burnt it at the city gates, and on the same day wrote to Spalatin, through whom he usually communicated with the elector:-"This 10th day of December, in the year 1520, at the ninth hour of the day, were burnt at Wittemberg, at the cast gate, near the holy cross, all the pope's books, the Decree, the Decretals, the Extravagante of Clement VI., Leo X.'s last bull, the Angelic Sum, Eck's Chrysoprasus, and some other works of Eck's and Emser's. Is not this news?" He says in the public notice which he caused to be drawn up of these proceedings, "If any one ask me why I have done this, my reply is, that it is an ancient practice to burn bad books. The apostles burnt five thousand deniers' worth of them." The tradition runs that he exclaimed, on throwing the book of the Decretals into the flames, "Thou hast tormented the Lord's holy one; may the ev erlasting fire torment and consume thee!" These things were news, indeed, as Luther said. Until then, most sects and heresies had sprung up in secret, and conceived themselves fortunate if they remained unknown; but now a monk starts up who treats with the pope as equal with equal, and constitutes himself the judge of the head of the Church. The chain of tradition is broken, unity shattered, the robe without seam rent. It must not be supposed that Luther himself, with all his violence, took this last step without pain. It was uprooting from his heart, by one pull, the whole of the venerable past in which he had been cradled. It is true that he believed he had retained the Scriptures for his own; but then they were the Scriptures with a different interpretation from what had been put upon them for a thousand years. All this his enemies have often said; but not one of them has said it more eloquently than he himself. "No doubt," he writes to Erasmus in the opening of his book, De Servo Arbitrio, (The Will not Free,)-" no doubt you feel some hesitation when you see arrayed before you so numerous a succession of learned men, and the unanimous voice of so many centuries, illustrated by deeply read divines, and by great martyrs, glorified by numerous miracles, as well as more recent theologians and countless academies, councils, bishops, pontiffs. On this side are found erudition, genius, numbers, greatness, loftiness, power, sanctity, miracles, and what not beside? On mine, Wiclif, Laurentius Valla, Augustin, (although you forget him,) and Luther, a poor man, a mushroom of yesterday, standing alone with a few friends, without such erudition, genius, numbers, greatness, sanctity, or miracles. Take them all together, they could not cure a lame horse. . . . Et alia quæ tu plurima fando enumerare vales, (and innumerable other things you could mention.) For what are we? What the wolf said of Philomel, Vox et præterea nihil, (a sound-no more.) I own, my dear Erasmus, you are justified in hesitating before all these things; ten years since, I hesitated like you. . . . Could I suppose that this Troy, which had so long victoriously resisted so many assaults, would fall in one day? I solemnly call God to witness that I should have continued to fear, and should even now be hesitating, had not my conscience and the truth compelled me to speak. You know that my heart is not a rock; and had it been, yet beaten by such billows and tempests, it would have been shivered to atoms when all this mass of authority was launched at my head, like a deluge ready to overwhelm me." Elsewhere he writes: ". . . Holy Scripture has taught me how perilous and fearful it is to raise one's voice in God's church, to speak in the midst of those who will be your judges, when, on the day of judgment, you shall find yourself in presence of God, under the eye of the angels, all creation seeing, listening, hanging upon the divine word. Assuredly when this thought rises to my mind, my earnest desire is for silence, and the sponge for my writings. . . . How hard, how fearful to live to render an account to God of every idle word!" On March 27, 1519, he writes, "I was alone, and hurried unprepared into this business. I admitted many essential points in the pope's favor, for was I, a poor, miserable monk, to set myself up against the majesty of the pope, before whom the kings of the earth (what do I say? earth itself, hell, and heaven) trembled ? . . . How suffered the first and second year. Ah! little do those confident spirits who since then have attacked the pope so proudly and presumptuously, know of the dejection of spirits, not feigned and assumed, but too real, or rather the despair which I went through. . . . Unable to find any light to guide me in dead or mute teachers, (I mean the writings of theologians and jurists,) I longed to consult the living council of the Churches of God, to the end that if any godly persons could be found, illumined by the Holy Ghost, they would take compassion on me, and be pleased to give me good and safe counsel for my own welfare and that of all Christendom; but it was impossible for me to discover them. I saw only the pope, the cardinals, bishops, theologians, canonists, monks, priests; and it was from them I expected enlightenment. For I had so fed and saturated myself with their doctrine, that I was unconscious whether I were asleep or awake. . . . Had I at that time braved the pope as I now do, I should have looked for the earth instantly to open and swallow me up alive, like Korah and Abiram. . . . At the name of the Church I shuddered, and offered to give way. In 1518 I told Cardinal Caietano, at Augsburg, that I would thenceforward be mute; only praying him, in all humility, to impose the same silence on my adversaries, and hush their clamors. Far from meeting my wishes, he threatened to condemn everything I had taught, if I would not retract. Now I had already published the Catechism to the edification of many souls, and was bound not to allow it to be condemned." LUTHER'S RECEPTION AT WORMS. LUTHER is led from the quiet cell of the cloister, from the lecture-rooms of the university, from the midst of his powerfully-roused community, upon a yet greater scene: all Germany looks upon him as upon no other! The monk, the preacher, and the teacher of Wittemberg has become the man of the German nation. Therefore does the artist represent him, in this picture, in the midst of his people, who joyfully greet the man upon whom they found their hopes; old and young, men and women, high and low, clergymen and laymen, all unite in one group. Beside Luther in the carriage sit his friends, Amsdorf, Petrus von Suaven, and the monk Pezenstein; Justus Jonas and many Saxon noblemen, who had gone to meet him, follow on horseback. Thousands of people from all ranks accompany him to his abode in the "Deutschen Hof." ABOVE, LUTHER PREPARING HIMSELF BY PRAYER FOR IIIS APPEARANCE BEFORE THE EMPEROR AND EMPIRE The principal scene shows Luther and Frondsberg at the entrance of the Imperial Hall. BUT this waving flood of the people, which on that day bore him upward so mightily, is not the principal nor the strongest shield of his heart. This beating, warring heart appeals to a higher protection,-to the eternal Rock amidst the flood of time and of nations. Streets and hostelries have become quiet, the masses which to-day shouted his welcome are silent; but he seeks to compose his mind with music, and by gazing upward into the sacred stillness of the starry sky He prays: 66 Almighty, eternal God, how poor a thing is this world! how little a matter will cause the people to stand open |