"It sounds to me, children, like an old story of my childhood. Have I
not heard such words half a century since in Bohemia? and have I not
seen the lips which spoke them silenced in flames and blood? Neither Dr.
Luther nor any of you know whither you are going. Thank God, I am soon
going to him who died for speaking just such words! Thank God I hear
them again before I die! I have doubted long about them and about
everything; how could I dare to think a few proscribed men right against
the whole Church? But since these old words cannot be hushed, but rise
from the dead again, I think there must be life in them; eternal life.
Children," she concluded, "tell me when Dr. Luther preaches again; I
will hear him before I die, that I may tell your grandfather, when I
meet him, the old truth is not dead. I think it would give him another
joy, even before the throne of God."
WITTEMBERG, _August_.
Christopher has returned from Jueterbok. He saw there a great pile of
burning faggots, which Dr. Tetzel had caused to be kindled in the
market-place, "to burn the heretics," he said.
We laughed as he related this, and also at the furious threats and
curses that had been launched at Dr. Luther from the pulpit in front of
the iron money-chest. But our grandmother said, "It is no jest,
children; they have done it, and they will do it again yet!"
WITTEMBERG, _November_ 1, 1517;
ALL SAINTS' DAY.
Yesterday evening, as I sat at the window with Gottfried in the late
twilight, hushing Gretchen to sleep, we noticed Dr. Luther walking
rapidly along the street towards the Castle church. His step was firm
and quick, and he seemed too full of thought to observe anything as he
passed. There was something unusual in his bearing, which made my
husband call my attention to him. His head was erect and slightly thrown
back, as when he preaches. He had a large packet of papers in his hand,
and although he was evidently absorbed with some purpose, he had more
the air of a general moving to a battle-field than of a theologian
buried in meditation.
This morning, as we went to the early mass of the festival, we saw a
great crowd gathered around the doors of the Castle church; not a mob,
however, but an eager throng of well-dressed men, professors, citizens,
and students; those within the circle reading some writing which was
posted on the door, whilst around, the crowd was broken into little
knots, in eager but not loud debate.
Gottfried asked what had happened.
"It is only some Latin theses against the indulgences, by Dr. Luther,"
replied one of the students, "inviting a disputation on the subject."
I was relieved to hear that nothing was the matter, and Gottfried and I
quietly proceeded to the service.
"It is only an affair of the university," I said. "I was afraid it was
some national disaster, an invasion of the Turks, or some event in the
Elector's family."
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 God 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 publishing
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
brushing 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. God 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 wishing 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 nobly 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 passages she most delights in: "O
Christ, I am thy sin, thy curse, thy wrath of God, thy hell; and
contrariwise, thou art my righteousness, my blessing, my life, my grace
of God, my heaven."
And again, when he speaks of Christ being "made a curse for us, the
unspotted and undefiled Lamb of God wrapped in our sins, God 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."