Fritz's Story.
EBERNBURG, _April_ 2, 1526.
A chasm has opened between me and my monastic life. I have been in the
prison, and in the prison have I received at last, in full, my
emancipation. The ties I dreaded impatiently to break have been broken
for me, and I am a monk no longer.
I could not but speak to my brethren in the convent of the glad tidings
which had brought me such joy. It is as impossible for Christian life
not to diffuse itself as that living water should not flow, or that
flames should not rise. Gradually a little band of Christ's freedmen
gathered around me. At first I did not speak to them much of Dr.
Luther's writings. My purpose was to show them that Dr. Luther's
doctrine was _not_ his own, but God's.
But the time came when Dr. Luther's name was on every lip. The bull of
excommunication went forth against him from the Vatican. His name was
branded as that of the vilest of heretics by every adherent of the Pope.
In many churches, especially those of the Dominicans, the people were
summoned by the great bells to a solemn service of anathema, where the
whole of the priests, gathered at the altar in the darkened building,
pronounced the terrible words of doom and then, flinging down their
blazing torches extinguished them on the stone pavement, as hope, they
said, was extinguished by the anathema for the soul of the accursed.
At one of these services I was accidentally present. And mine was not
the only heart which glowed with burning indignation to hear that worthy
name linked with those of apostates and heretics, and held up to
universal execration. But, perhaps, in no heart there did it enkindle
such a fire as in mine. Because I knew the source from which those
curses came, how lightly, how carelessly those firebrands were flung;
not fiercely, by the fanaticism of blinded consciences, but daintily and
deliberately, by cruel, reckless hands, as a matter of diplomacy and
policy, by those who cared themselves neither for God's curse nor his
blessing. And I knew also the heart which they were meant to wound; how
loyal, how tender, how true; how slowly, and with what pain Dr. Luther
had learned to believe the idols of his youth a lie; with what a wrench,
when the choice at last had to be made between the word of God and the
voice of the Church, he had clung to the Bible, and let the hopes, and
trust, and friendships of earlier days be torn from him; what anguish
that separation still cost him; how willingly, as a humble little child,
at the sacrifice of anything but truth and human souls, he would have
flung himself again on the bosom of that Church to which, in his fervent
youth, he had offered up all that makes life dear.
"_They curse, but bless Thou._"
The words came, unbidden into my heart, and almost unconsciously from my
lips. Around me I heard more than one "Amen;" but at the same time I
became aware that I was watched by malignant eyes.
After the publication of the excommunication, they publicly burned the
writings of Dr. Luther in the great square. Mainz was the first city in
Germany where this indignity was offered him.
Mournfully I returned to my convent. In the cloisters of our Order the
opinions concerning Luther are much divided. The writings of St.
Augustine have kept the truth alive in many hearts amongst us; and
besides this, there is the natural bias to one of our own order, and the
party opposition to the Dominicans, Tetzel and Eck, Dr. Luther's
enemies. Probably there are few Augustinian convents in which there are
not two opposite parties in reference to Dr. Luther.
In speaking of the great truths, of God freely justifying the sinner
because Christ died, (the Judge acquitting because the Judge himself had
suffered for the guilty), I had endeavoured to trace them, as I have
said, beyond all human words to their divine authority. But now to
confess Luther seemed to me to have become identical with confessing
Christ. It is the truth which is assailed in any age which tests our
fidelity. It is to _confess_ we are called, not merely to _profess_. If
I profess, with the loudest voice and the clearest exposition, every
portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the
world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing
Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christianity. Where the
battle rages the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on
all the battle-fields besides is mere flight and disgrace to him if he
flinches at that one point.
It seems to me also that, practically, the contest in every age of
conflict ranges usually round the person of one Faithful, Godsent man,
whom to follow loyally is fidelity to God. In the days of the first
Judaizing assault on the early Church, that man was St. Paul. In the
great Arian battle, this man was Athanasius--"_Athanasius contra
mundum_." In our days, in our land, I believe it is Luther; and to deny
Luther would be for me who learned the truth from his lips, to deny
Christ. Luther, I believe, is the man whom God has given to his Church
in Germany in this age. Luther, therefore, I will follow--not as a
perfect example, but as a God-appointed leader. Men can never be neutral
in great religious contests; and if, because of the little wrong in the
right cause, or the little evil in the good man, we refuse to take the
side of right, we are, by that very act, silently taking the side of
wrong.
When I came back to the convent I found the storm gathering. I was asked
if I possessed any of Dr. Luther's writings. I confessed that I did. It
was demanded that they should be given up. I said they could be taken
from me, but I would not willingly give them up to destruction, because
I believed they contained the truth of God. Thus the matter ended until
we had each retired to our cells for the night, when one of the older
monks came to me and accused me of secretly spreading Lutheran heresy
among the brethren.
I acknowledged I had diligently, but not secretly, done all I could to
spread among the brethren the truths contained in Dr. Luther's books,
although not in his words, but in St. Paul's. A warm debate ensued,
which ended in the monk angrily leaving the cell, saying that means
would be found to prevent the further diffusion of this poison.
The next day I was taken into the prison where John of Wesel died; the
heavy bolts were drawn upon me, and I was left in solitude.
As they left me alone, the monk with whom I had the discussion of the
previous night said. "In this chamber, not forty years since, a heretic
such as Martin Luther died."
The words were intended to produce wholesome fear: they acted as a
bracing tonic. The spirit of the conqueror who had seemed to be defeated
there, but now stood with the victorious palm before the Lamb, seemed
near me. The Spirit of the truth for which he suffered was with me; and
in the solitude of that prison I learned lessons years might not have
taught me elsewhere.
No one except those who have borne them knows how strong are the fetters
which bind us to a false faith, learned at our mother's knee, and
riveted on us by the sacrifices of years. Perhaps I should never have
been able to break them. For me, as for thousands of others, they were
rudely broken by hostile hands. But the blows which broke them were the
accolade which smote me from a monk into a knight and soldier of my
Lord.
Yes; there I learned that these vows which have bound me for so many
years are bonds, not to God, but to a lying tyranny. The only true vows,
as Dr. Luther says, are the vows of our baptism--to renounce the world,
the flesh, and the devil, as soldiers of Christ. The only divine Order
is the common order of Christianity. All other orders are disorder; not
confederations within the Church, but conspiracies against it. If, in an
army, the troops choose to abandon the commander's arrangement, and
range themselves, by arbitrary rules, in peculiar uniforms, around
self-elected leaders, they would not be soldiers--they would be
mutineers.
God's order is, I think, the State to embrace all men, the Church to
embrace all Christian men; and the kernel of the State and the type of
the Church is the family.
He creates us to be infants, children--sons, daughters--husband,
wife--father, mother. He says, Obey your parents, love your wife,
reverence your husband, love your children. As children, let the Lord at
Nazareth be your model; as married, let the Lord, who loved the Church
better than life, be your type; as parents, let the heavenly Father be
your guide. And if we, abandoning every holy name of family love he has
sanctioned, and every lowly duty he has enjoined, choose to band
ourselves anew into isolated conglomerations of men or women, connected
only by a common name and dress, we are not only amiable enthusiasts--we
are rebels against the Divine order of humanity.
God, indeed, may call some especially to forsake father and mother, and
wife and children, and all things for his dearer love. But when he calls
to such destinies, it is by the plain voice of Providence, or by the
bitter call of persecution; and then the martyr's or the apostle's
solitary path is as much the lowly, simple path of obedience as the
mother's or the child's. The crown of the martyr is consecrated by the
same holy oil which anoints the head of the bride, the mother, or the
child,--the consecration of love and of obedience. There is none other.
All that is not duty is sin; all that is not obedience is disobedience;
all that is not of love is of self; and self crowned with thorns in a
cloister is as selfish as self crowned with ivy at a revel.
Therefore I abandon cowl and cloister for ever. I am no more Brother
Sebastian, of the order of the Eremites of St. Augustine. I am Friedrich
Cotta, Margaret Cotta's son, Else and Thekla's brother Fritz. I am no
more a monk. I am a Christian--I am no more a vowed Augustinian. I am a
baptized Christian, dedicated to Christ from the arms of my mother,
united to Him by the faith of my manhood. Henceforth I will order my
life by no routine of ordinances imposed by the will of a dead man
hundreds of years since. But day by day I will seek to yield myself,
body, soul, and spirit to the living will of my almighty, loving God,
saying to him morning by morning, "Give me this day my daily bread.
Appoint to me this day my daily task." And He will never fail to hear,
however often I may fail to ask.
I had abundance of time for those thoughts in my prison; for during the
three weeks I lay there I had, with the exception of the bread and water
which were silently laid inside the door every morning, but two visits.
And these were from my friend the aged monk who had first told me about
John of Wesel.
The first time he came (he said) to persuade me to recant. But whatever
he intended, he said little about recantation--much more about his own
weakness, which hindered him from confessing the same truth.
The second time he brought me a disguise, and told me he had provided
the means for my escape that very night. When, therefore, I heard the
echoes of the heavy bolts of the great doors die away through the long
stone corridors, and listened till the last tramp of feet ceased, and
door after door of the various cells was closed, and every sound was
still throughout the building, I laid aside my monk's cowl and frock,
and put on the burgher dress provided for me.
To me it was a glad and solemn ceremony, and, alone in my prison, I
prostrated myself on the stone floor, and thanked Him who, by his
redeeming death and the emancipating word of his free spirit, had made
me a free man, nay, infinitely better, _his freedman_.
The bodily freedom to which I looked forward was to me a light boon
indeed, in comparison with the liberty of heart already mine. The
putting on this common garb of secular life was to me like a solemn
investiture with the freedom of the city and the empire of God.
Henceforth I was not to be a member of a narrow, separated class, but of
the common family; no more to freeze alone on a height, but to tread the
lowly path of common duty; to help my brethren, not as men at a
sumptuous table throw crumbs to beggars and dogs, but to live amongst
them--to share my bread of life with them; no longer as the forerunner
in the wilderness, but, like the Master, in the streets, and highways,
and homes of men; assuming no nobler name than man created in the image
of God, born in the image of Adam; aiming at no loftier title than
Christian, redeemed by the blood of Christ, and created anew, to be
conformed to his glorious image. Yes, as the symbol of a freedman, as
the uniform of a soldier, as the armour of a sworn knight, at once
freeman and servant, was that lowly burgher's dress to me; and with a
joyful heart, when the aged monk came to me again, I stepped after him,
leaving my monk's frock lying in the corner of the cell, like the husk
of that old lifeless life.
In vain did I endeavour to persuade my liberator to accompany me in my
flight. "The world would be a prison to me, brother," he said with a sad
smile. "All I loved in it are dead, and what could I do there, with the
body of an old man and the helpless inexperience of a child? Fear not
for me," he added; "I also shall, I trust, one day dwell in a home; but
not on earth!"
And so we parted, he returning to the convent, and I taking my way, by
river and forest, to this castle of the noble knight Franz von
Sickingen, on a steep height at the angle formed by the junction of two
rivers.
My silent weeks of imprisonment had been weeks of busy life in the world
outside. When I reached this castle of Ebernburg, I found the whole of
its inhabitants in a ferment about the summoning of Dr. Luther to Worms.
His name, and my recent imprisonment for his faith, were a sufficient
passport to the hospitality of the castle, and I was welcomed most
cordially.
It was a great contrast to the monotonous routine of the convent and the
stillness of the prison. All was life and stir; eager debates as to what
it would be best to do for Dr. Luther; incessant coming and going of
messengers on horse and foot between Ebernburg and Worms, where the Diet
is already sitting, and where the good knight Franz spends much of his
time in attendance on the Emperor.
Ulrich von Hutton is also here, from time to time, vehement in his
condemnation of the fanaticism of monks and the lukewarmness of princes;
and Dr. Bucer, a disciple of Dr. Luther's, set free from the bondage of
Rome by his healthful words at the great conference of the Augustinians
at Heidelberg.
_April_ 30, 1521.
The events of an age seem to have been crowded into the last month. A
few days after I wrote last, it was decided to send a deputation to Dr.
Luther, who was then rapidly approaching Worms, entreating him not to
venture into the city, but to turn aside to Ebernburg. The Emperor's
confessor, Glapio, had persuaded the knight von Sickingen and the
chaplain Bucer, that all might easily be arranged, if Dr. Luther only
avoided the fatal step of appearing at the Diet.
A deputation of horsemen was therefore sent to intercept the doctor on
his way, and to conduct him, if he would consent, to Ebernburg, the
"refuge and hostelry of righteousness," as it has been termed.
I accompanied the little band, of which Bucer was to be chief spokesman.
I did not think Dr. Luther would come. Unlike the rest of the party, I
had known him not only when he stepped on the great stage of the world
as the antagonist of falsehood, but as the simple, straightforward,
obscure monk. And I knew that the step which to others seemed so great,
leading him from safe obscurity into perilous pre-eminence before the
eyes of all Christendom, was to him no great momentary effort, but
simply one little step in the path of obedience and lowly duty which he
had been endeavouring to tread so many years. But I feared. I distrusted
Glapio, and believed that all this earnestness on the part of the papal
party to turn the doctor aside was not for his sake, but for their own.
I needed not, at least, have distrusted Dr. Luther. Bucer entreated him
with the eloquence of affectionate solicitude; his faithful friends and
fellow-travellers, Jonas, Amsdorf, and Schurff, wavered, but Dr. Luther
did not hesitate an instant. He was in the path of obedience. The next
step was as unquestionable and essential as all the rest, although, as
he had once said, "it led through flames which extended from Worms to
Wittemberg, and raged up to heaven." He did not, however, use any of
these forcible illustrations now, natural as they were to him. He simply
said,--
"I continue my journey. If the Emperor's confessor has anything to say
to me, he can say it at Worms. _I will go to the place to which I have
been summoned._"
And he went on, leaving the friendly deputation to return to Ebernburg.
I did not leave him. As we went on the way, some of those who had
accompanied him told me through what fervent greetings and against what
vain entreaties of fearful affection he had pursued his way thus far;
how many had warned him that he was going to the stake, and had wept
that they should see his face no more; how, through much bodily weakness
and suffering, through acclamations and tears, he had passed on simply
and steadfastly, blessing little children in the schools he visited, and
telling them to search the Scriptures; comforting the timid and aged,
stirring up the hearts of all to faith and prayer, and by his courage
and trust more than once turning enemies into friends.
"Are you the man who is to overturn the popedom?" said a soldier,
accosting him rather contemptuously at a halting-place; "how will you
accomplish that?"
"I rely on Almighty God," he replied, "whose orders I have."