"I serve the Emperor Charles; your Master is greater than mine."
One more assault awaited Dr. Luther before he reached his destination.
It came through friendly lips. When he arrived near Worms, a messenger
came riding towards us from his faithful friend Spalatin, the Elector's
chaplain, and implored him on no account to think of entering the city.
The doctor's old fervour of expression returned at such a temptation
meeting him so near the goal.
"Go tell your master," he said, "that if there were at Worms as many
devils as there are tiles on the roofs, yet would I go in."
And he went in. A hundred cavaliers met him near the gates, and escorted
him within the city. Two thousand people were eagerly awaiting him, and
pressed to see him as he passed through the streets. Not all friends.
Fanatical Spaniards were among them, who had torn his books in pieces
from the book-stalls, and crossed themselves when they looked at him, as
if he had been the devil; baffled partisans of the Pope: and on the
other hand, timid Christians who hoped all from his courage; men who had
waited long for this deliverence, had received life from his words, and
had kept his portrait in their homes and hearts encircled like that of a
canonized saint with a glory. And through the crowd he passed, the only
man, perhaps, in it who did not see Dr. Luther through a mist of hatred
or of glory, but felt himself a solitary, feeble, helpless man, leaning
only, yet resting securely, on the arm of Almighty strength.
Those who knew him best perhaps wondered at him most during those days
which followed. Not at his courage--that we had expected--but at his
calmness and moderation. It was this which seemed to me most surely the
seal of God on that fervent impetuous nature, stamping the work and the
man as of God.
We none of us know how he would have answered before that august
assembly. At his first appearance some of us feared he might have been
too vehement. The Elector Frederick could not have been more moderate
and calm. When asked whether he would retract his books, I think there
were few among us who were not surprised at the noble self-restraint of
his reply. He asked for time.
"Most gracious Emperor, gracious princes and lords," he said, "with
regard to the first accusation, I acknowledge the books enumerated to
have been from me. I cannot disown them. As regards the second, seeing
that is a question of the faith and the salvation of souls, and of God's
word, the most precious treasure in heaven or earth, I should act rashly
were I to reply hastily. I might affirm less than the case requires, or
more than truth demands, and thus offend against that word of Christ,
'Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my
Father who is in heaven.' Wherefore I beseech your imperial majesty,
with all submission, to allow me time that I may reply without doing
prejudice to the word of God."
He could afford to be thought for the time what many of his enemies
tauntingly declared him, a coward, brave in the cell, but appalled when
he came to face the world.
During the rest of that day he was full of joy; "like a child," said
some, "who knows not what is before him;" "like a veteran," said others,
"who has prepared everything for the battle;" like both, I thought,
since the strength of the veteran in the battles of God is the strength
of the child following his Father's eye, and trusting on his Father's
arm.
A conflict awaited him afterwards in the course of the night, which one
of us witnessed, and which made him who witnessed it feel no wonder that
the imperial presence had no terrors for Luther on the morrow.
Alone that night our leader fought the fight to which all other combats
were but as a holiday tournament. Prostrate on the ground, with sobs and
bitter tears, he prayed,--
"Almighty, everlasting God, how terrible this world is! How it would
open its jaws to devour me, and how weak is my trust in thee! The flesh
is weak, and the devil is strong! O thou my God, help me against all the
wisdom of this world. Do thou the work. It is for thee alone to do it;
for the work is thine, not mine. I have nothing to bring me here. I have
no controversy to maintain, not I, with the great ones of the earth. I
too would that my days should glide along, happy and calm. But the cause
is thine. It is righteous, it is eternal. O Lord, help me; thou that art
faithful, thou that art unchangeable. It is not in any man I trust. That
were vain indeed. All that is in man gives way; all that comes from man
faileth. O God, my God, dost thou not hear me? Art thou dead? No; thou
canst not die! Thou art but hiding thyself. Thou hast chosen me for this
work. I know it. Oh, then, arise and work. Be thou on my side, for the
sake of thy beloved Son Jesus Christ, who is my defence, my shield and
my fortress.
"O Lord, my God, where art thou? Come, come; I am ready--ready to
forsake life for thy truth, patient as a lamb. For it is a righteous
cause, and it is thine own. I will not depart from thee, now nor through
eternity. And although the world should be full of demons; although my
body, which, nevertheless, is the work of thine hands, should be doomed
to bite the dust, to be stretched upon the rack, cut into pieces,
consumed to ashes, the soul is thine. Yes; for this I have the assurance
of thy word. My soul is thine. It will abide near thee throughout the
endless ages. Amen. O God, help thou me! Amen!"
Ah, how little those who follow know the agony it costs to take the
first step, to venture on the perilous ground no human soul around has
tried!
Insignificant indeed the terrors of the empire to one who had seen the
terrors of the Almighty. Petty indeed are the assaults of flesh and
blood to him who has withstood principalities and powers, and the hosts
of the prince of darkness.
At four o'clock the Marshal of the Empire came to lead him to his trial.
But his real hour of trial was over, and calm and joyful Dr. Luther
passed through the crowded streets to the imperial presence.
As he drew near the door, the veteran General Freundsberg, touching his
shoulder, said--
"Little monk, you have before you an encounter such as neither I nor any
other captains have seen the like of even in our bloodiest campaigns.
But if your cause be just, and if you know it to be so, go forward in
the name of God, and fear nothing. God will not forsake you."
Friendly heart! he knew not that our Martin Luther was coming _from_ his
battle-field, and was simply going as a conqueror to declare before men
the victory he had won from mightier foes.
And so at last he stood, the monk, the peasant's son, before all the
princes of the empire, the kingliest heart among them all, crowned with
a majesty which was incorruptible, because invisible to worldly eyes;
one against thousands who were bent on his destruction; one in front of
thousands who leant on his fidelity; erect because he rested on that
unseen arm above.
The words he spoke that day are ringing through all Germany. The closing
sentence will never be forgotten--
"_Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen._"
To him these deeds of heroism are acts of simple obedience; every step
inevitable, because every step is duty. In this path he leans on God's
help absolutely and only. And all faithful hearts throughout the land
respond to his Amen.
On the other hand, many of the polished courtiers and subtle Roman
diplomatists saw no eloquence in his words, words which stirred every
true heart to its depths. "That man," said they, "will never convince
us." How should he? His arguments were not in their language, nor
addressed to them, but to true and honest hearts; and to such they
spoke.
To men with whom eloquence means elaborate fancies, decorating
corruption or veiling emptiness, what could St. Paul seem but a
"babbler?"
All men of earnest purpose acknowledged their force;--enemies, by
indignant clamour that he should be silenced: friends, by wondering
gratitude to God who had stood by him.
It was nearly dark when the Diet broke up. As Dr. Luther came out,
escorted by the imperial officers, a panic spread through the crowd
collected in the street, and from every lip to lip was heard the cry,--
"They are taking him to prison."
"They are leading me to my hotel," said the calm voice of him whom this
day has made the great man of Germany. And the tumult subsided.
EBERNBURG, _June_, 1521.
Dr. Luther has disappeared! Not one that I have seen knows at this
moment where they have taken him, whether he is in the hands of friend
or foe, whether even he is still on earth!
We ought to have heard of his arrival at Wittemberg many days since. But
no inquiries can trace him beyond the village of Mora in the Thuringian
Forest. There he went from Eisenach on his way back to Wittemberg, to
visit his aged grandmother and some of his father's relations, peasant
farmers who live on the clearings of the forest. In his grandmother's
lowly home he passed the night, and took leave of her the next morning;
and no one has heard of him since.
We are not without hope that he is in the hands of friends; yet fears
will mingle with these hopes. His enemies are so many and so bitter; and
no means would seem, to many of them, unworthy, to rid the world of such
a heretic.
While he yet remained at Worms the Romans strenuously insisted that his
obstinacy had made the safe-conduct invalid; some even of the German
princes urged that he should be seized; and it was only by the urgent
remonstrances of others, who protested that they would never suffer such
a blot on German honour, that he was saved.
At the same time the most insidious efforts were made to persuade him to
retreat, or to resign his safe-conduct in order to show his willingness
to abide by the issue of a fair discussion. This last effort, appealing
to Dr. Luther's confidence in the truth for which he was ready to die,
had all but prevailed with him. But a knight who was present when it was
made, seeing through the treachery, fiercely ejected the priest who
proposed it from the house.
Yet through all assaults, insidious or open, Dr. Luther remained calm
and unmoved, moved by no threats, ready to listen to any fair
proposition.
Among all the polished courtiers and proud princes and prelates, he
seemed to me to stand like an ambassador from an imperial court among
the petty dignitaries of some petty province. His manners had the
dignity of one who has been accustomed to a higher presence than any
around him, giving to every one the honour due to him, indifferent to
all personal slights, but inflexible on every point that concerned the
honour of his sovereign.
Those of us who had known him in earlier days saw in him all the
simplicity, the deep earnestness, the child-like delight in simple
pleasures we had known in him of old. It was our old friend Martin
Luther, but it seemed as if our Luther had come back to us from a
residence in heaven, such a peace and majesty dwelt in all he said. One
incident especially struck me. When the glass he was about to drink of
at the feast given by the Archbishop of Treves, one of the papal party,
shivered in his hand as he signed the cross over it, and his friends
exclaimed "poison!" he (so ready usually to see spiritual agency in all
things) quietly observed that "the glass had doubtless broken on account
of its having been plunged too soon into cold water when it was washed."
His courage was no effort of a strong nature. He simply trusted in God,
and really was afraid of nothing.
And now he is gone.
Whether among friends or foes, in a hospital refuge such as this, or in
a hopeless secret dungeon, to us for the time at least he is dead. No
word of sympathy or counsel passes between us. The voice which all
Germany hushed its breath to hear is silenced.
Under the excommunication of the Pope, under the ban of the empire,
branded as a heretic, sentenced as a traitor, reviled by the Emperor's
own edict as "a fool, a blasphemer, a devil clothed in a monk's cowl,"
it is made treason to give him food or shelter, and a virtue to deliver
him to death. And to all this, if he is living, he can utter no word of
reply.
Meantime, on the other hand, every word of his is treasured up and
clothed with the sacred pathos of the dying words of a father. The noble
letter which he wrote to the nobles describing his appearance before the
Diet is treasured in every home.
Yet some among us derive not a little hope from the last letter he
wrote, which was to Lucas Cranach, from Frankfort. In it he says,--
"The Jews may sing once more their 'Io! Io!' but to us also the
Easter-day will come, and then will we sing Alleluia. A little
while we must be silent and suffer. 'A little while,' said
Christ, 'and ye shall not see me; and again a little while and
ye shall see me.' I hope it may be so now. But the will of God,
the best in all things, be done in this as in heaven and earth.
Amen."
Many of us think it is a dim hint to those who love him that he knew
what was before him, and that after a brief concealment for safety,
"till this tyranny be overpast," he will be amongst us once more.
I, at least, think so, and pray that to him this time of silence may be
a time of close intercourse with God, from which he may come forth
refreshed and strengthened to guide and help us all.
And meantime, a work, not without peril, but full of sacred joy, opens
before me. I have been supplied by the friends of Dr. Luther's doctrine
with copies of his books and pamphlets, both in Latin and German, which
I am to sell as a hawker through the length and breadth of Germany, and
in any other lands I can penetrate.
I am to start to-morrow, and to me my pack and strap are burdens more
glorious than the armour of a prince of the empire; my humble pedlar's
coat and staff are vestments more sacred than the robes of a cardinal or
the weeds of a pilgrim.
For am I not a pilgrim to the city which hath foundations! Is not my
yoke the yoke of Christ? and am I not distributing, among thirsty and
enslaved men, the water of life and the truth which sets the heart free?
BLACK FOREST, _May_ 1521.
The first week of my wandering life is over. To-day my way lay through
the solitary paths of the Black Forest, which, eleven years ago, I trod
with Dr. Martin Luther, on our pilgrimage to Rome. Both of us then wore
the monk's frock and cowl. Both were devoted subjects of the Pope, and
would have deprecated, as the lowest depth of degradation, his anathema.
Yet at that very time Martin Luther bore in his heart the living germ of
all that is now agitating men's hearts from Pomerania to Spain. He was
already a freedman of Christ, and he knew it. The Holy Scriptures were
already to him the one living fountain of truth. Believing simply on Him
who died, the just for the unjust, he had received the free pardon of
his sins. Prayer was to him the confiding petition of a forgiven child
received to the heart of the Father, and walking humbly by his side.
Christ he knew already as the Confessor and Priest; the Holy Spirit as
the personal teacher through His own Word.
The fetters of the old ceremonial were indeed still around him, but only
as the brown casings still swathe many of the swelling buds of the young
leaves; which others, this May morning, cracked and burst as I passed
along in the silence through the green forest paths. The moment of
liberation, to the passer-by always seems a great, sudden effort; but
those who have watched the slow swelling of the imprisoned bud, know
that the last expansion of life which bursts the scaly cerements is but
one moment of the imperceptible but incessant growth, of which even the
apparent death of winter was a stage.
But it is good to live in the spring time; and as I went on, my heart
sang with the birds and the leaf-buds, "For me also the cerements of
winter are burst,--for me and for all the land!"
And as I walked, I sang aloud the old Easter hymn which Eva used to
love:--
Fone luctum, Magdalena,
Et serena lacrymas;
Non es jam cermonis coena,
Non cur fletum exprimas;
Causae mille sunt laetandi,
Causae mille exultandi,
Alleluia resonet!
Suma risum, Magdalena,
Frons nitescat lucida;
Denigravit omnis poena,
Lux coruscat fulgida;
Christus nondum liberavit,
Et de morte triumphavit:
Alleluia resonet!
Gaude, plaude Magdalena,
Tumba Christus exiit;
Tristis est per acta scena,
Victor mortis rediit;
Quem deflebis morientem,
Nunc arride resurgentem:
Alleluia resonet!
Tolle vultum, Magdalena,
Redivivum obstupe:
Vide frons quam sit amoena,
Quinque plagas adspice;
Fulgem sicut margaritae,
Ornamenta rovae vitae:
Alleluia resonet!
Vive, vive, Magdalena!
Tua lux reversa est;
Guadiis turgesit vena,
Mortis vis obstersa est;
Maesti procul sunt dolores,
Laeti redeant amores:
Alleluia resonet!
Yes, even in the old dark times, heart after heart, in quiet homes and
secret convent cells, has doubtless learned this hidden joy. But now the
world seems learning it. The winter has its robins, with their solitary
warblings; but now the spring is here, the songs come in choruses,--and
thank God I am awake to listen!
But the voice which awoke this music first in my heart, among these very
forests--and since then, through the grace of God, in countless hearts
throughout this and all lands--what silence hushes it now? The silence
of the grave, or only of some friendly refuge? In either case,
doubtless, it is not silent to God.
I had scarcely finished my hymn, when the trees became more scattered
and smaller, as if they had been cleared not long since; and I found
myself on the edge of a valley, on the slopes of which nestled a small
village, with its spire and belfry rising among the wooden cottages, and
flocks of sheep and goats grazing in the pastures beside the little
stream which watered it.
I lifted up my heart to God, that some hearts in that peaceful place
might welcome the message of eternal peace through the books I carried.
As I entered the village, the priest came out of the parsonage--an aged
man, with a gentle, kindly countenance--and courteously saluted me.