DR. LUTHER GIVES COURAGE
I wrote thus to Moritz, an honest friend, but one who dwelled much
on the surface of the water. I could not bring myself to write him
all that had passed at Leipzig since my coming. Afterwards I heard
that, despite the very cold civility which the city magistrates and
Duke George had given Dr. Luther, many a candid man who had gone to
the disputation friendly to Eck, came away admiring his champion’s
lungs and adroitness, yet in his heart of hearts wishing well to
Luther and his daring gospel. But I confess towards the close of the
disputation I was thinking less and less of what the world would say
of the Wittenberg friar, and more and more of what I ought to say
myself. For if Dr. Luther’s gospel meant anything, it meant that I,
Walter von Regenstein, had a duty towards God and man which I could
neither cast upon the Church, nor annihilate by the conventionalities
of pagan philosophy. For be it remembered, despite my candid endeavor
now to play the German, my education was that of a child of Italy--of
the Italy of the wonderful close of the wonderful fifteenth century;
and almost with my nurse’s milk I had been taught a doctrine that
will sound strange to my pious grandchildren, nurtured in the spirit
of our glorious North German Reformation. “Assent with lips to the
teachings of the Church,” spoke the doctrine, “say the appointed
_Credo_, profess reverence for all holy things, never allow doubt
or questioning to pass from vague inquiry into heretical action--do
this, and eat, drink, be merry; enjoy all things human law does not
too absolutely forbid; if, then, there be a hereafter for the soul,
the Church you have served will care for it. The Church will deliver
you in safety into the great Forever even as the skilful shipmaster
delivers the passive freightage after the tedious voyage.”
Some of my preceptors had taught this doctrine almost in set words:
all had taught it in their lives. How could a high-born youth idle
in the sun before the Duomo of Florence, or drift on the shimmering
Grand Canal at Venice and learn otherwise? Two things alone saved me
from too implicit acquiescence in this teaching. The first was the
fact that I had become too intimately acquainted with this engine of
soul salvation, whilst working its many wheels at Rome. The second
was an inherited spirit of independent honesty which never allowed me
(at least with easy conscience) to shift a responsibility to another,
or to set over myself a moral and spiritual keeper. Therefore I had
of late years been a pagan in private thought, not from any inherent
tendency to deliberate atheism, but because while tacitly repudiating
the right of the Church to think for me, I had sluggishly refused to
think for myself. But now had come on my scene two beings--Luther,
Ilsa. And the eyes of my soul saw how differently!
Touching Ilsa I say merely this. In Italy I had drifted from one
dubious amour to another after the fashion of my rank and age. My
connection with Marianna had been the last, the most enduring,
because the Cardinal’s daughter had possessed the most to offer in
keen intelligence, and a penetrating wit that passed far beyond
ordinary charm and vivacity. Of my mother’s sex I had formed a
painfully low moral estimate. In Ilsa I had seen an attractive girl,
physically comely and naïvely interesting. When I had broken with
Marianna it had been the most natural thing in the world for me to
conclude that it was time for me to marry, that the season of sowing
tares was over, and that I needed a dignified and congenial countess.
Such surely would prove Ilsa. But the manner of her refusal had
stirred me to the depths of my being. For the first time I realized
how infinitely lifted above a commonplace man a high-minded and truly
good woman might be: what strength, uplift, nay, stretching towards
the God-like, might come from her unselfish companionship; how, in
brief, my soul craved, not a suitable consort, but a heaven-gifted
wife. It was a new experience for me. From my eyes had fallen, as it
had been, scales. And in the moment of the realization of my need, I
had lost the one being that I knew could satisfy it. Would ever the
mercy of that heaven I had mistrusted and defied take away the pang?
All--all seemed darkly hid.
Touching Luther I had thought quite as much as concerning Ilsa,
albeit in a different fashion. What I said to him on the night the
disputation ended will bear its own story.
* * * * *
I had refrained from thrusting myself upon Dr. Luther all through
those days in Leipzig. Once when quitting the hall of disputation
he had cast me a friendly smile and nod, but on the night of the
14th of July, when I found that he was on the point of returning to
Wittenberg without waiting for Eck and Carlstadt to complete their
last hair-splitting, I saw no need for longer hesitancy. Luther I
must see, and that without delay.
He was lodged at the humble Augustinian convent on a narrow street
by the Pleissenburg. A warm rain was plashing down, the darkening
streets were deserted after the long summer evening. A lay brother
let me in, and ran upstairs to announce my coming. I was quickly
bidden to ascend, and there, in a small, whitewashed room, and again
by faint candle-light, I saw the Man.
The light was faint but through it all shone his illuminating smile.
Up to me with long brave steps he strode, and his hand closed tightly
over mine.
“I knew you would come,” was all he said, and then made haste to
pluck off my wet cloak and shake it with a zest and vigor that at
another moment would have set me laughing.
“Yes, Dr. Luther,” I said quietly, “you see I am your obedient
parishioner. Your letter found me in Italy; I returned to the
Harzland, and now--here I am.”
He eyed me kindly but shrewdly. Both of us were anxious to speak of
near, but tender, things, and it was hard to begin. So for a moment
we bartered commonplaces. I complimented him upon the skill he had
shown in the debate. He shrugged his shoulders in displeasure.
“We had words, words, words. _Vox et praeterea nihil._ It has been a
mere loss of time, this disputation, not an honest searching after
truth. For two years’ time we have been examining these doctrines of
Eck: we have counted all their bones. Now comes this fellow, and he
has made more outcry in one hour than we in two years.”
“Hardly that,” I returned, smiling. “I think you said somewhat
concerning the Councils and the Hussites which all Germany will hear.”
“_Liebe Gott_, yes! I saw Eck’s trap, and with both eyes open walked
into it. That will indeed make a cawing and rattling among the rooks
and daws. But it was Heaven’s will the truth should come out. As well
now as a little later--it was God’s way.”
“Cawing and rattling it will make, I promise you. I think the
rattling will reëcho even in Rome. It will sound strange.”
He glanced about the room in the sly manner of a child about to
whisper some naughtiness, then plucked my arm and put his face
against my ear.
“Let me whisper it. The thing has been growing on me long. I have
tried to resist. Now I am made certain.”
“What is it?” I demanded.
“The true name of the Pope is ‘Anti-Christ.’”
“You will proclaim this?” for even I was startled.
“When God wills. It must all come out in His time.”
I admit, as he spoke, the vision of His Holiness’s sumptuous
court; the pageants of the Vatican; the innumerable Monsignori,
chamberlains, ushers, cardinals; the vision of the Vicar of Peter
himself enthroned beneath the triple tiara, all came before me; and
against them stood the dark-robed friar in the whitewashed room. What
equality? But I was in no mood for debating then. I had come to this
friar with a burdened soul. Here, if anywhere, I must find release.
In a kind of desperation I darted out upon my task.
“Doctor Martin, I am not come to talk of Eck, or Papal Powers, or of
Indulgences. I am come to talk of that which is to me nearer, dearer;
my own soul. I am as a man crushed under an intolerable weight. I
have done that which was evil in the sight of man and God. I am full
of earthly wisdom--it profits me nothing. I am rich, and nobly born.
Of what avail? The meanest peasant upon my Regenstein lands can look
up to heaven with better conscience than I. For he has been given
little, and must repay little. And I have been given the best of the
world--and how can I ever repay--” Here I know my tongue clove in my
mouth, my eyes were wet. I felt a hand, firm and comforting, upon my
shoulder.
“Poor lad.”
That was all; but it sent an answering thrill of warmth through all
my veins. I started to fall on my knees.
“Oh, Father, Father Martin. I have not confessed these many years to
a priest, but now I confess to you. Hear me, hear--”
“Never am I ‘Father’ to such as you. Call me Brother. ‘Brother
Martin,’ your brother in Christ, by whose dear name we are taught to
have hope in heaven. And now talk to me, Walter, talk to me even as a
man talketh to his friend.”
“Walter?” So to this heretic friar I was not Graf von Regenstein, but
only brother and familiar friend. The thought brought infinite joy. I
stood again, and let him lead me to a hard oaken bench. And there we
sat down together, his arm around my shoulders, even as my father’s
had been the night before he departed to his last battle. And once
started, all the tale of my youth came out. Frivolities or worse at
Florence and Rome that must have vexed my companion’s very ears; the
story of my career with Marianna; the circumstances of my banishment
to Germany; my hour of temptation at Mainz and how I had yielded; and
finally how I had quitted Palaestro, and my last sad encounter with
Ilsa.
Then silence at length, after I had poured out the very dregs of my
spirit. At last Dr. Martin’s deep voice answered me.
“They are very joyful in heaven this night.”
“What do you mean?”
“Is it not written, ‘joy shall be in heaven over one wanderer that
repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons who need no
repentance?’”
“Ah, yes, Brother Martin, but being sorry is not being healed. You
have taught me the folly of the indulgence papers that have salved so
many. I am very sick.”
“Sick indeed _liebe_ Walter; and it is not easy to name the saint
for your ailment. St. Antonius avails they say for swollen limbs,
St. Blasius for a stiff neck; but whom save the Lord Christ for the
illness of the soul.”
“You speak of Him. He is very far away and strange. Socrates I can
understand, and Plato and Plotinus. I can see in divers saints of
the Church examples to honor, nay imitate; but the Lord Himself--it
is hard.”
Dr. Martin’s strong hand clinched.
“Oh! Rome, this is thy handiwork--the building of high bulwarks
’twixt the soul that seeks and the God that loves. Have you, Walter,
ever _believed_ that you believed the formal teachings of the Church?”
“In a blind and formal way, yes. They have never entered into my
life.”
My companion gave a bitter laugh.
“You remember the story told by Erasmus. A man lay dying. The devil
came to him, striving to trip him into some heresy, then snatch his
soul. Thus they debated, the devil asking, ‘What do you believe?’
‘What the Church believes.’ ‘And what does the Church believe?’ ‘What
I believe.’ ‘And what then _do_ you believe?’ ‘Why, what the Church
believes.’--The chain seems endless. You are brought to a trackless
desert, starving and without water.”
“Even so.”
“Well, then, Walter mine, a great sinner am I, but not Erasmus’s
devil; so answer me. Is there nothing you truly believe in, beyond
the certitude of your own wretchedness?”
“Yes, one thing. I cannot say with sincerity ‘I believe in God,’ but
I can say to all the world ‘I believe in Martin Luther.’”
He withdrew his arm suddenly.
“_Absit omen!_ this must never be. Have I not burdens enough to bear,
without having to play the God in your eyes?”
“It is you, Brother Martin, that have convinced me that theology is
not the vilest snare ever invented to pilfer the pockets of silly
men.”
“And yet you say you believe in me, though not in God. Why is that?”
“Because in you I have seen that which I would fain have God to be.”
Luther averted his face.
“Sinner I am! And yet you say this? But at length I see the light in
your gropings. Not Brother Martin you reverence, but the essence of
God, which shines by His Grace through me, however unworthy. This is
beyond my deserts. Yet I am glad. For I see your way to happiness.”
“Tell it: ah! tell.”
“Do not fret too sorely over matters of faith and belief. Long ago it
was written ‘He who will do the will, shall know the doctrine.’ Do
not be over-curious as to the dark things before which human wisdom
springs back baffled. Man’s reason and philosophy can teach how to
build houses, to live decent and honest; nay, sometimes to achieve
earthly greatness. But how man should come to God and His dear Son,
and how sinful folk may be born unto eternal life,--philosophy
teaches none of that. ‘The kingdom of heaven cometh not with
observation.’ The knowledge comes to the open and penitent heart, by
the free spirit of grace descending through God’s word.”
“But, O Brother Martin,” my speech came hard;--my whole soul seemed
straining to express itself with my tongue,--“you have railed long at
the hypocricies of the would-be righteous, and yet is there nothing
that a needy man may do that can avail. Are pilgrimage, oblation,
austerities,--all the things wherewith men of a former time have
tried to turn an angry heaven,--are they now profitless forever?”
In the dim candle-light I could see him smile, while his deep voice
rolled out the majestic sentences.
“Is it not written, ‘_He hath showed thee O Man, what is good. And
what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love
mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God._’ And yet again, ‘_Is not
this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bands of wickedness,
to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that
ye break every yoke._’”
“If that were all. If that were all.” I kept repeating, my head still
burning, “but the Church has taught so long--”
Luther silenced me with a commanding gesture. “Forget the Church.
The builders of the Church were men--I dare say it, very fallible
men. Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, Bonaventura, nay, even St.
Francis and St. Dominic, had their sins as well as you and I. They
can err. All men can err. Popes can err most of all. Full many of
them, if their history foreshadows anything, are now in hell. Since
my struggle began I have delved deep into Church history. I have
found so much clay mingled with the brass and iron of the builders of
the Church that I must call them weak indeed. But one thing is not of
men. It is of God. It is steadfast, sure. Therefore--_read_!”
“Read what?”
“Read THE BOOK!”
“The Scriptures?”
“You have said it. Have you never read God’s Word?”
“I have read the lore of the Greeks and the Latins; of Dante, of
Petrarch, and all the later Italians; nay, I have studied the ‘gay
poetry’ of the troubadours of Provence. I have dipped in your Wolfram
von Eschenbach and your Walter von der Vogelweide. But what you call
‘The Book’ I have not read. Once at Padua in the library I took up
a Vulgate. My preceptor caught me. ‘Read it no more,’ he commanded;
‘it is a work for beggarly friars, not for signori of _virtù_. The
Latin of St. Jerome is execrable. It will ruin your Ciceronian
style.’ Later when I had mastered Greek, I thought of reading the
New Testament in the original. Behold,--I was warned the Gospels and
Epistles were without Attic idiom; I must eschew them or my taste
were ruined!”
Again came Dr. Martin’s bitter laugh.
“O master counsel of the devil! Surely God is mightier than he, else
this Book would long since have been destroyed--for from of old the
fiend has raged against it. By a miracle it has been preserved, and
it will confound the powers of darkness yet. Against this Book have
raged many potentates--of Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome.
They are gone. The Book remains, and will remain forever and ever;
for it is a fiery shield, of more substance, and purer than gold.
Tried in the fire it overcomes the fury of the raging heat: and even
so he who trustingly uses this shield overcomes all. He stands secure
everlastingly, against all human misfortune. With this shield he
fears nothing: nor death, nor hell, nor all the devils.”
Then again after a long pause he commanded, “READ!”
“I promise it.”
“Read. ‘And the Lord God will give thee light.’ Day and night, my
Walter, have I sought heaven on my knees for you since that evening
we talked together in Wittenberg--you and I. And now Eck, Caïetanus,
the Dominicans, the Pope,--all, all are forgotten. I grow strong and
bold. For heaven has given me my heart’s desire. I am given your
soul, O Walter--brother, mine, mine.”
He cast his arms about me, and kissed me; we knelt down together, and
he uttered a prayer for me the like whereof I had never heard, no,
not in the holiest basilica in Rome. We arose and again he kissed me.
“Go back to Regenstein,” he enjoined. “Be a just lord unto your
peasants. You shall answer for them to God. Care for the little
children. See that the lads and maids live true and honest. Read
and pray diligently, but be not over-anxious for a sudden resolving
of doubts and the gift of miracles. And if in the months to come it
be God’s will to work a great change on the face of Germany and all
Christendom, be ready, a valiant helper, to do the deed He commands.”
“And Ilsa,” I asked at parting; “shall I crush her forever from
memory?”
“Bow to God’s will,” he answered slowly. “He can bring to pass doings
that may be marvellous in our eyes. All lies in His hands. Do not pry
too far into the future. Let the morrow care for itself. And yet”--he
hesitated as he spoke--“the day may come when even nuns’ veils, and
vows, and convent walls will be as a tale that is told. For we live
amid the Lord’s doings. They are marvellous in our eyes.”
And then I passed out into the warm, rainy night.
* * * * *
The next day, without waiting for Carlstadt and Eck to conclude their
final arguments, Dr. Luther left Leipzig for Wittenberg. When I hear
men criticize him as being harsh and uncharitable in dealing with
opponents I recall one of his acts whilst in Leipzig,--how he wrote
a letter of comfort and condolence to no less a person than Johann
Tetzel, who lay dying in ignominy, execrated even by the Papalists,
at the Dominican convent. “The matter had passed beyond him,” Luther
assured the miserable indulgence vendor, “not Tetzel was the author
of the great contention, but quite another, greater than he.” And so
with consolation from the man he had berated, on July the 4th, while
Luther was locking horns with Eck, the fellow died. Let his judgment
be left with God.
I travelled with Dr. Martin back to Wittenberg. He was weary
physically and mentally, and glad to be again in his quiet home
cloister. On the journey I made the happy friendship of his _fidus
Achates_, young Professor Melanchthon, whose classical learning
nobly used was to be such a prop to Luther, such an ally to the
Reformation. After a stay of some weeks at the University, amid
pleasant comradeship, I did as I had been bidden--I returned to the
Regenstein.