At last I stand on the threshold of the world I have so long desired to
enter. Else's world is mine no longer; and yet, never until this week
did I feel how dear that little home-world is to me. Indeed, Heaven
forbid I should have left it finally. I look forward to returning to it
again, nevermore, however, as a burden on our parents, but as their stay
and support, to set our mother free from the cares which are slowly
eating her precious life away, to set our father free to pursue his
great projects, and to make our little Else as much a lady as any of the
noble baronesses our grandmother tells us of. Although, indeed, as it
is, when she walks beside me to church on holidays, in her crimson
dress, with her round, neat, little figure in the black jacket with the
white stomacher, and the silver chains, her fair hair so neatly braided,
and her blue eyes so full of sunshine,--who can look better than Else?
And I can see I am not the only one in Eisenach who thinks so. I would
only wish to make all the days holidays for her, and that it should not
be necessary when the festival is over for my little sister to lay aside
all her finery so carefully in the great chest, and put on her
Aschputtel garments again, so that if the fairy prince we used to talk
of, were to come, he would scarcely recognise the fair little princess
he had seen at church. And yet no fairy prince need be ashamed of our
Else even in her working, every-day clothes;--he certainly would not be
the right one if he were. In the twilight, when the day's work is done,
and the children are asleep, and she comes and sits beside me with her
knitting in the lumber-room or under the pear tree in the garden, what
princess could look fresher or neater than Else, with her smooth fair
hair braided like a coronet? Who would think that she had been toiling
all day, cooking, washing, nursing the children. Except, indeed, because
of the healthy colour her active life gives her face, and for that sweet
low voice of hers, which I think women learn best by the cradles of
little children.
I suppose it is because I have never yet seen any maiden to compare to
our Else that I have not yet fallen in love. And, nevertheless, it is
not of such a face as Else's I dream, when dreams come, or even exactly
such as my mother's. My mother's eyes are dimmed with many cares; is it
not that very worn and faded brow that makes her sacred to me? More
sacred than any saintly halo! And Else, good, practical little Else, she
is a dear household fairy; but the face I dream of has another look in
it. Else's eyes are good, as she says, for seeing and helping; and
sweet, indeed, they are for loving--dear, kind, true eyes. But the eyes
I dream of have another look, a fire like our grandmother's, as if from
a southern sun; dim, dreamy, far-seeing glances, burning into the
hearts, like the ladies in the romances, and yet piercing into heaven,
like St. Cecilia's when she stands entranced by her organ. She should be
a saint, at whose feet I might sit and look through her pure heart into
heaven, and yet she should love me wholly, passionately, fearlessly,
devotedly, as if her heaven were all in my love. My love! and who am I
that I should have such dreams? A poor burgher lad of Eisenach, a
penniless student of a week's standing at Erfurt! The eldest son of a
large destitute family, who must not dare to think of loving the most
perfect maiden, in the world, when I meet her, until I have rescued a
father, mother, and six brothers and sisters from the jaws of biting
poverty. And even in a dream it seems almost a treachery to put any
creature above Else. I fancy I see her kind blue eyes filling with
reproachful tears. For there is no doubt that in Else's heart I have no
rival, even in a dream. Poor, loving, little Else!
Yes, she must be rescued from the pressure of those daily fretting cares
of penury and hope deferred, which have made our mother old so early. If
I had been in the father's place, I could never have borne to see winter
creeping so soon over the summer of her life. But he does not see it. Or
if for a moment her pale face and the grey hairs which begin to come
seem to trouble him, he kisses her forehead, and says,
"Little mother, it will soon be over; there is nothing wanting now but
the last link to make this last invention perfect, and then--"
And then he goes into his printing-room; but to this day the missing
link has never been found. Else and our mother, however, always believe
it will turn up some day. Our grandmother has doubts. And I have
scarcely any hope at all, although, for all the world, I would not
breathe this to any one at home. To me that laboratory of my father's,
with its furnace, its models, its strange machines, is the most
melancholy place in the world. It is like a haunted chamber,--haunted
with the helpless, nameless ghosts of infants that have died at their
birth,--the ghosts of vain and fruitless projects; like the ruins of a
city that some earthquake had destroyed before it was finished, ruined
palaces that were never roofed, ruined houses that were never inhabited,
ruined churches that were never worshipped in. The saints forbid that my
life should be like that! and yet what it is which has made him so
unsuccessful, I can never exactly make out. He is no dreamer. He is no
idler. He does not sit lazily down with folded arms and imagine his
projects. He makes his calculations with the most laborious accuracy; he
consults all the learned men and books he has access to. He weighs, and
measures, and constructs the neatest models possible. His room is a
museum of exquisite models, which seem as if they must answer, and yet
never do. The professors, and even the Elector's secretary, who has come
more than once to consult him, have told me he is a man of remarkable
genius.
What can it be, then, that makes his life such a failure? I cannot
think; unless it is that other great inventors and discoverers seem to
have made their discoveries and inventions as it were _by the way_, in
the course of their every-day life. As a seaman sails on his appointed
voyage to some definite port, he notices drift-wood or weeds which must
have come from unknown lands beyond the seas. As he sails in his calling
from port to port, the thought is always in his mind; everything he
hears groups itself naturally around this thought; he observes the winds
and currents; he collects information from mariners who have been driven
out of their course, in the direction where he believes this unknown
land to lie. And at length he persuades some prince that his belief is
no mere dream, and like the great admiral Christopher Columbus, he
ventures across the trackless unknown Atlantic and discovers the Western
Indies. But before he was a discoverer, he was a mariner.
Or some engraver of woodcuts thinks of applying his carved blocks to
letters, and the printing-press is invented. But it is in his calling.
He has not gone out of his way to hunt for inventions. He has found them
in his path, the path of his daily calling. It seems to me people do not
become great, do not become discoverers and inventors by trying to be
so, but by determining to do in the very best way what they have to do.
Thus improvements suggest themselves, one by one, step by step; each
improvement is tested as it is made by practical use, until at length
the happy thought comes, not like an elf from the wild forest, but like
an angel on the daily path; and the little improvements become the great
invention. There is another great advantage, moreover, in this method
over our father's. If the invention never comes, at all events we have
the improvements, which are worth something. Every one cannot invent the
printing-press or discover the New Indies; but every engraver may make
his engravings a little better, and every mariner may explore a little
further than his predecessors.
Yet it seems almost like treason to write thus of our father. What would
Else or our mother think, who believe there is nothing but accident or
the blindness of mankind between us and greatness? Not that they have
learned to think thus from our father. Never in my life did I hear him
say a grudging or depreciating word of any of those who have most
succeeded where he has failed. He seems to look on all such men as part
of a great brotherhood, and to rejoice in another man hitting the point
which he missed, just as he would rejoice in himself succeeding in
something to-day which he failed in yesterday. It is this nobleness of
character which makes me reverence him more than any mere successes
could. It is because I fear, that in a life of such disappointments my
character would not prove so generous, but that failure would sour my
temper and penury degrade my spirit as they never have his, that I have
ventured to search for the rocks on which he made shipwreck, in order to
avoid them. All men cannot return wrecked, and tattered, and destitute
from an unsuccessful voyage, with a heart as hopeful, a temper as
generous, a spirit as free from envy and detraction, as if they brought
the golden fleece with them. Our father does this again and again; and
therefore I trust his argosies are laid up for him as for those who
follow the rules of evangelical perfection, where neither moth nor rust
can corrupt. I could not. I would never return until I could bring what
I had sought, or I should return a miserable man, shipwrecked in heart
as well as in fortune. And therefore I must examine my charts, and
choose my port and my vessel carefully, before I sail.
All these thoughts came into my mind as I stood on the last height of
the forest, from which I could look back on Eisenach, nestling in the
valley under the shadow of the Wartburg. May the dear mother of God, St.
Elizabeth, and all the saints, defend it evermore!
But there was not much time to linger for a last view of Eisenach. The
winter days were short; some snow had fallen in the previous night. The
roofs of the houses in Eisenach were white with it, and the carvings of
spire and tower seemed inlaid with alabaster. A thin covering lay on the
meadows and hill-sides, and light feather-work frosted the pines. I had
nearly thirty miles to walk through forest and plain before I reached
Erfurt. The day was as bright and the air as light as my heart. The
shadows of the pines lay across the frozen snow, over which my feet
crunched cheerily. In the clearings, the outline of the black twigs were
pencilled dark and clear against the light blue of the winter sky. Every
outline was clear, and crisp, and definite, as I resolved my own aims in
life should be. I knew my purposes were pure and high, and I felt as if
Heaven must prosper me.
But as the day wore on, I began to wonder when the forest would end,
until, as the sun sank lower and lower, I feared I must have missed my
way; and at last as I climbed a height to make a survey, to my dismay it
was too evident I had taken the wrong turning in the snow. Wide reaches
of the forest lay all around me, one pine-covered hill folding over
another; and only in one distant opening could I get a glimpse of the
level land beyond, where I knew Erfurt must lie. The daylight was fast
departing; my wallet was empty. I knew there were villages hidden in the
valleys here and there; but not a wreath of smoke could I see, nor any
sign of man, except here and there faggots piled in some recent
clearing. Towards one of these clearings I directed my steps, intending
to follow the wood-cutters' track, which I thought would probably lead
me to the hut of some charcoal burner, where I might find fire and
shelter. Before I reached this spot, however, night had set in. The snow
began to fall again, and it seemed too great a risk to leave the broader
path to follow any unknown track. I resolved, therefore, to make the
best of my circumstances. They were not unendurable. I had a flint and
tinder, and gathering some dry wood and twigs, I contrived with some
difficulty to light a fire. Cold and hungry I certainly was, but for
this I cared little. It was only an extra fast, and it seemed to me
quite natural that my journey of life should commence with difficulty
and danger. It was always so in legend of the saints, romance, or elfin
tale, or when anything great was to be done.
But in the night, as the wind howled through the countless stems of the
pines, not with the soft varieties of sound it makes amidst the summer
oak-woods, but with a long monotonous wail like a dirge, a tumult awoke
in my heart such as I had never known before. I knew these forests were
infested by robber-bands, and I could hear in the distance the baying
and howling of the wolves; but it was not fear which tossed my thoughts
so wildly to and fro, at least not fear of bodily harm. I thought of all
the stories of wild huntsmen, of wretched guilty men, hunted by packs of
fiends; and the stories which had excited a wild delight in Else and me,
as our grandmother told them by the fire at home, now seemed to freeze
my soul with horror. For was not I a guilty creature, and were not the
devils indeed too really around me?--and what was to prevent their
possessing me? Who in all the universe was on my side? Could I look up
with confidence to God? He loves only the holy. Or to Christ? He is the
judge; and more terrible than any cries of legions of devils will it be
to the sinner to hear his voice from the awful snow-white throne of
judgment. Then, my sins rose before me--my neglected prayers, penances
imperfectly performed, incomplete confessions. Even that morning, had I
not been full of proud and ambitious thoughts--even perhaps vainly
comparing myself with my good father, and picturing myself as conquering
and enjoying all kinds of worldly delights? It was true, it could hardly
be a sin to wish to save my family from penury and care; but it was
certainly a sin to be ambitious of worldly distinction, as Father
Christopher had so often told me. Then, how difficult to separate the
two? Where did duty end, and ambition and pride begin? I determined to
find a confessor as soon as I reached Erfurt, if ever I reached it. And
yet, what could even the wisest confessor do for me in such
difficulties? How could I ever be sure that I had not deceived myself in
examining my motives, and then deceived him, and thus obtained an
absolution on false pretences, which could avail me nothing? And if this
might be so with future confessions, why not with all past ones?
The thought was horror to me, and seemed to open a fathomless abyss of
misery yawning under my feet. I could no more discover a track out of my
miserable perplexities than out of the forest.
For if these apprehensions had any ground, not only the sins I had
failed to confess were unpardoned, but the sins I had confessed and
obtained absolution for on false grounds. Thus it might be that at that
moment my soul stood utterly unsheltered, as my body from the snows,
exposed to the wrath of God, the judgment of Christ, and the exulting
cruelty of devils.
It seemed as if only one thing could save me, and that could never be
had. If I could find an infallible confessor, who could see down into
the depth of my heart, and back into every recess of my life, who could
unveil me to myself, penetrate all my motives, and assign me the
penances I really deserved, I would travel to the end of the world to
find him. The severest penances he could assign, after searching the
lives of all the holy Eremites and Martyrs, for examples of
mortification, it seemed to me would be light indeed, if I could only be
sure they were the right penances and would be followed by a true
absolution.
But this it was, indeed, impossible I could ever find.
What sure hope then could I ever have of pardon or remission of sins?
What voice of priest or monk, the holiest on earth, could ever assure me
I had been honest with myself? What absolution could ever give me a
right to believe that the baptismal robes, soiled as they told me
"before I had left off my infant socks," could once more be made white
and clean?
Then, for the first time in my life the thought flashed on me, of the
monastic vows, the cloister and the cowl. I knew there was a virtue in
the monastic profession which many said was equal to a second baptism.
Could it be possible that the end of all my aspirations might after all
be the monk's frock? What then would become of father and mother, dear
Else, and the little ones? The thought of their dear faces seemed for an
instant to drive away these gloomy fears, as they say a hearth-fire
keeps off the wolves. But then a hollow voice seemed to whisper, "If God
is against you, and the saints, and your conscience, what help can you
render your family or any one else?" The conflict seemed more than I
could bear. It was so impossible to me to make out which suggestions
were from the devil and which from God, and which from my own sinful
heart; and yet it might be the unpardonable sin to confound them.
Wherefore for the rest of the night I tried not to think at all, but
paced up and down reciting the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the
Paternoster, the Ave Maria, the Litanies of the Saints, and all the
collects and holy ejaculations I could think of. By degrees this seemed
to calm me, especially the Creeds and the Paternoster, whether because
these are spells the fiends especially dread, or because there is
something so comforting in the mere words, "Our Father," and "the
remission of sins," I do not know. Probably for both reasons.
And so the morning dawned, and the low sunbeams slanted up through the
red stems of the pines; and I said the Ave Maria, and thought of the
sweet mother of God, and was a little cheered.
But all the next day I could not recover from the terrors of that
solitary night. A shadow seemed to have fallen on my hopes and projects.
How could I tell that all which had seemed most holy to me as an object
in life might not be temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil;
and that with all my labouring for my dear ones at home, my sins might
not bring on them more troubles than all my successes could avert?
As I left the shadow of the forest, however, my heart seemed to grow
lighter. I shall always henceforth feel sure that the wildest legends of
the forests may be true, and that the fiends have especial haunts among
the solitary woods at night.
It was pleasant to see the towers of Erfurt rising before me on the
plain.
I had only one friend at the University; but that is Martin Luther, and
he is a host in himself to me. He is already distinguished among the
students here; and the professors expect great things of him.
He is especially studying jurisprudence, because his father wishes him
to be a great lawyer. This also is to be my profession, and his counsel,
always so heartily given, is of the greatest use to me.
His life is, indeed, changed since we first knew him at Eisenach, when
Aunt Ursula took compassion on him, a destitute scholar, singing at the
doors of the houses in St. George Street for a piece of bread. His
father's hard struggles to maintain and raise his family have succeeded
at last; he is now the owner of a foundry and some smelting-furnaces,
and supports Martin liberally at the university. The icy morning of
Martin's struggles seems over, and all is bright before him.
Erfurt is the first University in Germany. Compared with it, as Martin
Luther says, the other universities are mere private academies. At
present we have from a thousand to thirteen hundred students. Some of
our professors have studied the classics in Italy, under the descendents
of the ancient Greeks and Romans. The Elector Frederic has, indeed,
lately founded a new University at Wittemberg, but we at Erfurt have
little fear of Wittemberg outstripping our ancient institution.
The Humanists, or disciples of the ancient heathen learning, are in
great force here, with Mutianus Rufus at their head. They meet often,
especially at his house, and he gives them subjects for Latin
versification, such as the praises of poverty. Martin Luther's friend
Spalatin joined these assemblies; but he himself does not, at least not
as a member. Indeed, strange things are reported of their converse,
which make the names of poet and philosopher in which they delight very
much suspected in orthodox circles. These ideas Mutianus and his friends
are said to have imported with the classical literature from Italy. He
has even declared and written in a letter to a friend, that "there is
but one God, and one goddess, although under various forms and various
names, as Jupiter, Sol, Apollo, Moses, Christ; Luna, Ceres, Proserpine,
Tellus, Mary." But these things he warns his disciples not to speak of
in public. "They must be veiled in silence," he says, "like the
Eleusinian mysteries. In the affairs of religion we must make use of the
mask of fables and enigmas. Let us by the grace of Jupiter, that is of
the best and highest God, despise the lesser gods. When I say Jupiter, I
mean Christ and the true God."
Mutianus and his friends also in their intimate circles speak most
slightingly of the Church ceremonies, calling the Mass a comedy, and the
holy relics ravens' bones;[2] speaking of the service of the altar as so
much lost time: and stigmatizing the prayers at the canonical hours as a
mere baying of hounds, or the humming, not of busy bees, but of lazy
drones.
If you reproached them with such irreverent sayings, they would probably
reply that they had only uttered them in an esoteric sense, and meant
nothing by them. But when people deem it right thus to mask their
truths, and explain away their errors, it is difficult to distinguish
which is the mask and which the reality in their estimation. It seems to
me also that they make mere intellectual games or exercises out of the
most profound and awful questions.
[Footnote 2: That is, skeletons left on the gallows for the ravens to
peck at.]
This probably, more than the daring character of their speculations,
deters Martin Luther from numbering himself among them. His nature is so
reverent in spite of all the courage of his character. I think he would
dare or suffer anything for what he believed true; but he cannot bear to
have the poorest fragment of what he holds sacred trifled with or played
with as a mere feat of intellectual gymnastics.
His chief attention is at present directed, by his father's especial
desire, to Roman literature and law, and to the study of the allegories
and philosophy of Aristotle. He likes to have to do with what is true
and solid; poetry and music are his delight and recreation. But it is in
debate he most excels. A few evenings since, he introduced me to a
society of students, where questions new and old are debated and it was
glorious to see how our Martin carried off the palm; sometimes swooping
down on his opponents like an eagle among a flock of small birds, or
setting down his great lion's paw and quietly crushing a host of
objections, apparently unaware of the mischief he had done, until some
feeble wail of the prostrate foe made him sensible of it, and he
withdrew with a good-humored apology for having hurt any one's feelings.
At other times he withers an unfair argument or a confused statement to
a cinder by some lightning-flash of humor or satire. I do not think he
is often perplexed by seeing too much of the other side of a disputed
question. He holds the one truth he is contending for, and he sees the
one point he is aiming at, and at that he charges with a force
compounded of the ponderous weight of his will, and the electric
velocity of his thoughts, crushing whatever comes in his way, scattering
whatever escapes right and left, and never heeding how the scattered
forces may reunite and form in his rear. He knows that if he only turns
on them, in a moment they will disperse again.
I cannot quite tell how this style of warfare would answer for an
advocate, who had to make the best of any cause he is engaged to plead.
I cannot fancy Martin Luther quietly collecting the arguments from the
worst side, to the end that even the worst side may have fair play;
which is, I suppose, often the office of an advocate.
No doubt, however, he will find or make his calling in the world. The
professors and learned men have the most brilliant expectations as to
his career. And what is rare (they say), he seems as much the favorite
of the students as of the professors. His nature is so social; his
musical abilities and his wonderful powers of conversation make him
popular with all.
And yet, underneath it all, we who know him well can detect at times
that tide of thoughtful melancholy, which seems to lie at the bottom of
all hearts which have looked deeply into themselves or into life.
He is as attentive as ever to religion, never missing the daily mass.
But in our private conversations, I see that his conscience is anything
but at ease. Has he passed through conflicts such as mine in the forest
on that terrible night? Perhaps through conflicts as much fiercer and
more terrible, as his character is stronger and his mind deeper than
mine. But who can tell? What is the use of unfolding perplexities to
each other, which it seems no intellect on earth can solve? The inmost
recesses of the heart must always, I suppose, be a solitude, like that
dark and awful sanctuary within the veil of the old Jewish temple,
entered only once a year, and faintly illumined by the light without,
through the thick folds of the sacred veil.
If only that solitude were indeed a holy of holies--or, being what it
is, if we only need enter it once a year, and not carry about the
consciousness of its dark secrets with us everywhere. But, alas! once
entered we can never forget it. It is like the chill, dark crypts
underneath our churches, where the masses for the dead are celebrated,
and where in some monastic churches the embalmed corpses lie shrivelled
to mummies, and visible through gratings. Through all the joyous
festivals of the holidays above, the consciousness of those dark
chambers of death below seems to creep up; like the damps of the vaults
through the incense, like the muffled wail of the dirges through the
songs of praise.
ERFURT, _April_, 1503.
We are just returned from an expedition which might have proved fatal to
Martin Luther. Early in the morning, three days since, we started to
walk to Mansfeld on a visit to his family, our hearts as full of hope as
the woods were full of song. We were armed with swords; our wallets were
full; and spirits light as the air. Our way was to lie through field and
forest, and then along the banks of the river Holme, through the Golden
Meadow where are so many noble cloisters and imperial palaces.
But we had scarcely been on our way an hour when Martin, by some
accident, ran his sword into his foot. To my dismay the blood gushed out
in a stream. He had cut into a main artery. I left him under the care of
some peasants, and ran back to Erfurt for a physician. When he arrived,
however, there was great difficulty in closing the wound with bandages.
I longed for Else or our mother's skillful fingers. We contrived to
carry him back to the city. I sat up to watch with him. But in the
middle of the night his wound burst out bleeding afresh. The danger was
very great, and Martin himself giving up hope, and believing death was
close at hand, committed his soul to the blessed Mother of God. Merciful
and pitiful, knowing sorrow, yet raised glorious above all sorrow, with
a mother's heart for all, and a mother's claim on Him who is the judge
of all, where indeed can we so safely flee for refuge as to Mary? It was
edifying to see Martin's devotion to her, and no doubt it was greatly
owing to this that at length the remedies succeeded, the bandages closed
the wound again, and the blood was stanched.
Many an Ave will I say for this to the sweet Mother of Mercy. Perchance
she may also have pity on me. O sweetest Lady, "eternal daughter of the
eternal Father, heart of the indivisible Trinity," thou seest my desire
to help my own careworn mother; aid me, and have mercy on me, thy sinful
child.
ERFURT, _June_, 1503.
Martin Luther has taken his first degree. He is a fervent student,
earnest in this as in everything. Cicero and Virgil are his great
companions among the Latins. He is now raised quite above the pressing
cares of penury, and will probably never taste them more. His father is
now a prosperous burgher of Mansfeld, and on the way to become
burgomaster. I wish the prospects at my home were as cheering. A few
years less of pinching poverty for myself seems to matter little, but
the cares of our mother and Else weigh on me often heavily. It must be
long yet before I can help them effectually, and meantime the bright
youth of my little Else, and the very life of our toilworn patient
mother, will be wearing away.
For myself I can fully enter into what Martin says, "The young should
learn especially to endure suffering and want; for such suffering doth
them no harm. It doth more harm for one to prosper without toil than it
doth to endure suffering." He says also, "It is God's way, of beggars to
make men of power, just as he made the world out of nothing. Look upon
the courts of kings and princes, upon cities and parishes. You will
there find jurists, doctors, councillors, secretaries, and preachers who
were commonly poor, and always such as have been students, and have
risen and flown so high through the quill that they are become lords."
But the way to wealth through the quill seems long; and lives so
precious to me are being worn out meantime, while I climb to the point
where I could help them! Sometimes I wish I had chosen the calling of a
merchant, men seem to prosper so much more rapidly through trade than
through study; and nothing on earth seems to me so well worth working
for as to lift the load from their hearts at home. But it is too late.
Rolling stones gather no moss. I must go on now in the track I have
chosen. Only sometimes again the fear which came over me on that night
in the forest. It seems as if heaven were against me, and that it is
vain presumption for such as I even to hope to benefit any one.
Partly, no doubt, it is the depression, caused by poor living, which
brings these thoughts. Martin Luther said so to me one day when he found
me desponding. He said he knew so well what it was. He had suffered so
much from penury at Magdeburg, and at Eisenach had even seriously
thought of giving up study altogether and returning to his father's
calling. He is kind to me and to all who need, but his means do not yet
allow him to do more than maintain himself. Or rather, they are not his
but his father's, and he feels he has no right to be generous at the
expense of his father's self-denial and toil.
I find life looks different, I must say, after a good meal. But then I
cannot get rid of the thought of the few such meals they have at home.
Not that Else writes gloomily. She never mentions a thing to sadden me.
And this week she sent me a gulden, which she said belonged to her
alone, and she had vowed never to use unless I would take it. But a
student who saw them lately said our mother looked wan and ill. And to
increase their difficulties, a month since the father received into the
house a little orphan girl, a cousin of our mother's, called Eva von
Schoenberg. Heaven forbid that I should grudge the orphan her crust, but
when it makes a crust less for the mother and the little ones, it is
difficult to rejoice in such an act of charity.
ERFURT, _July_, 1503.
I have just obtained a nomination on a foundation, which will, I hope,
for the present at least, prevent my being any burden on my family for
my own maintenance. The rules are very strict, and they are enforced
with many awful vows and oaths which trouble my conscience not a little,
because, if the least detail of these rules to which I have sworn is
even inadvertently omitted, I involve myself in the guilt of perjury.
However, it is a step onward in the way to independence; and a far
heavier yoke might well be borne with such an object.
We (the beneficiaries on this foundation) have solemnly vowed to observe
the seven canonical hours, never omitting the prayers belonging to each.
This insures early rising, which is a good thing for a student. The most
difficult to keep is the midnight hour, after a day of hard study; but
it is no more than soldiers on duty have continually to go through. We
have also to chant the _Miserere_ at funerals, and frequently to hear
the eulogy of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This last can certainly not be
called a hardship, least of all to me who desire ever henceforth to have
an especial devotion to Our Lady, to recite daily the Rosary,
commemorating the joys of Mary, the Salutation, the journey across the
mountains, the birth without pain, the finding of Jesus in the Temple,
and the Ascension. It is only the vows which make it rather a bondage.
But, indeed, in spite of all, it is a great boon. I can conscientiously
write to Else now, that I shall not need another penny of their scanty
store, and can even, by the next opportunity, return what she sent,
which, happily, I have not yet touched.
_August_, 1503.
Martin Luther is very dangerously ill; many of the professors and
students are in great anxiety about him. He has so many friends; and no
wonder! He is no cold friend himself, and all expect great honour to the
University from his abilities. I scarcely dare to think what his loss
would be to me. But this morning an aged priest who visited him inspired
us with some hope. As Martin lay, apparently in the last extremity, and
himself expecting death, this old priest came to his bed-side, and said
gently, but in a firm tone of conviction,--
"Be of good comfort, my brother, you will not die at this time; God will
yet make a great man of you, who shall comfort many others. Whom God
loveth and proposeth to make a blessing, upon him he early layeth the
cross, and in that school, who patiently endure learn much."
The words came with a strange kind of power, and I cannot help thinking
that there is a little improvement in the patient since they were
uttered. Truly, good words are like food and medicine to body and soul.
ERFURT, _August_, 1503.
Martin Luther is recovered! The Almighty, the Blessed Mother, and all
the saints be praised.
The good old priest's words have also brought some especial comfort to
me. If it could only be possible that those troubles and cares which
have weighed so heavily on Else's early life and mine, are not the rod
of anger, but the cross laid on those God loveth! But who can tell? For
Else, at least, I will try to believe this.
The world is wide in these days, with the great New World opened by the
Spanish mariners beyond the Atlantic, and the noble Old World opened to
students through the sacred fountains of the ancient classics, once more
unsealed by the revived study of the ancient languages; and this new
discovery of printing, which will, my father thinks, diffuse the newly
unsealed fountains of ancient wisdom in countless channels among high
and low.
These are glorious times to live in. So much already unfolded to us! And
who knows what beyond? For it seems as if the hearts of men everywhere
were beating high with expectation; as if, in these days, nothing were
too great to anticipate, or too good to believe.
It is well to encounter our dragons at the threshold of life; instead of
at the end of the race--at the threshold of death; therefore, I may well
be content. In this wide and ever widening world, there must be some
career for me and mine. What will it be?
And what will Martin Luther's be? Much is expected from him. Famous
every one at the University says he must be. On what field will he win
his laurels? Will they be laurels or palms?
When I hear him in the debates of the students, all waiting for his
opinions, and applauding his eloquent words, I see the laurel already
among his black hair, wreathing his massive, homely forehead. But when I
remember the debate which I know there is within him, the anxious
fervency of his devotions, his struggle of conscience, his distress at
any omission of duty, and watch the deep melancholy look which there is
sometimes in his dark eyes, I think not of the tales of the heroes, but
of the legends of the saints, and wonder in what victory over the old
dragon he will win his palm.
But the bells are sounding for compline, and I must not miss the sacred
hour.