"It is not likely there will be anything there for me," he said,
smiling. "My days are over for ballads and stories, such as I suppose
your merchandise consists of."
But when he saw the name of Luther on the title-page of a volume which I
showed him, his face changed, and he said in a grave voice, "Do you know
what you carry?"
"I trust I do," I replied. "I carry most of these books in my heart as
well as on my shoulders."
"But do you know the danger?" the old man continued. "We have heard that
Dr. Luther has been excommunicated by the Pope, and laid under the ban
of the empire; and only last week, a travelling merchant, such as
yourself, told us that his body had been seen pierced through with a
hundred wounds."
"That was not true three days since," I said. "At least, his best
friends at Worms knew nothing of it."
"Thank God!" he said; "for in this village we owe that good man much.
And if," he added timidly, "he has indeed fallen into heresy, it would
be well he had time to repent."
In that village I sold many of my books, and left others with the good
priest, who entertained me most hospitably, and sent me on my way with a
tearful farewell, compounded of blessings, warnings, and prayers.
PARIS, _July_, 1521.
I have crossed the French frontier, and have been staying some days in
this great, gay, learned city.
In Germany, my books procured me more of welcome than of opposition. In
some cases, even where the local authorities deemed it their duty
publicly to protest against them, they themselves secretly assisted in
their distribution. In others, the eagerness to purchase, and to glean
any fragment of information about Luther, drew a crowd around me, who,
after satisfying themselves that I had no news to give them of his
present state, lingered as long as I would speak, to listen to my
narrative of his appearance before the Emperor at Worms, while murmurs
of enthusiastic approval, and often sobs and tears, testified the
sympathy of the people with him. In the towns, many more copies of his
"Letter to the German Nobles" were demanded than I could supply.
But what touched me most was to see the love and almost idolatrous
reverence which had gathered around his name in remote districts, among
the oppressed and toiling peasantry.
I remember especially, in one village, a fine-looking old peasant farmer
taking me to an inner room where hung a portrait of Luther, encircled
with a glory, with a curtain before it.
"See!" he said. "The lord of that castle," and he pointed to a fortress
on an opposite height, "has wrought me and mine many a wrong. Two of my
sons have perished in his selfish feuds, and his huntsmen lay waste my
fields as they choose in the chase; yet, if I shoot a deer, I may be
thrown into the castle dungeon, as mine have been before. But their
reign is nearly over now. I saw _that man_ at Worms. I heard him speak,
bold as a lion, for the truth, before emperor, princes, and prelates.
God has sent us the deliverer; and the reign of righteousness will come
at last, when every man shall have his due."
"Friend," I said, with an aching heart, "the Deliverer came fifteen
hundred years ago, but the reign of justice has not come to the world
yet. The Deliverer was crucified, and his followers since then have
suffered, not reigned."
"God is patient," he said, "and _we_ have been patient long, God knows;
but I trust the time is come at last."
"But the redemption Dr. Luther proclaims," I said, gently, "is liberty
from a worse bondage than that of the nobles, and it is a liberty no
tyrant, no dungeon, can deprive us of--the liberty of the sons of
God;"--and he listened earnestly while I spoke to him of justification,
and of the suffering, redeeming Lord. But at the end he said--
"Yes, that is good news. But I trust Dr. Luther will avenge many a wrong
among us yet. They say he was a peasant's son like me."
If I were Dr. Luther, and knew that the wistful eyes of the oppressed
and sorrowful throughout the land were turned to me, I should be tempted
to say--
"Lord, let me die before these oppressed and burdened hearts learn how
little I can help them!"
For verily there is much evil done under the sun. Yet as truly there is
healing for every disease, remedy for every wrong, and rest from every
burden, in the tidings Dr. Luther brings. But remedy of a different
kind, I fear, from what too many fondly expect!
It is strange, also, to see how, in these few weeks, the wildest tales
have sprung up and spread in all directions about Dr. Luther's
disappearance. Some say he has been secretly murdered, and that his
wounded corpse has been seen; others, that he was borne away bleeding
through the forest to some dreadful doom; while others boldly assert
that he will re-appear at the head of a band of liberators, who will go
through the length and breadth of the land, redressing every wrong, and
punishing every wrong-doer.
Truly, if a few weeks can throw such a haze around facts, what would a
century without a written record have done for Christianity; or what
would that record itself have been without inspiration?
The country was in some parts very disturbed. In Alsace I came on a
secret meeting of the peasants, who have bound themselves with the most
terrible oaths to wage war to the death against the nobles.
More than once I was stopped by a troop of horsemen near a castle, and
my wares searched, to see if they belonged to the merchants of some city
with whom the knight of the castle was at feud; and on one of these
occasions it might have fared ill with me if a troop of Landsknechts in
the service of the empire had not appeared in time to rescue me and my
companions.
Yet everywhere the name of Luther was of equal interest. The peasants
believed he would rescue them from the tyranny of the nobles; and many
of the knights spoke of him as the assertor of German liberties against
a foreign yoke. More than one poor parish priest welcomed him as the
deliverer from the avarice of the great abbeys or the prelates. Thus, in
farm-house and hut, in castle and parsonage, I and my books found many a
cordial welcome. And all I could do was to sell the books, and tell all
who would listen, that the yoke Luther's words were powerful to break
was the yoke of the devil the prince of all oppressors, and that the
freedom he came to republish was freedom from the tyranny of sin and
self.
My true welcome, however, the one which rejoiced my heart, was when any
said, as many did, on sick-beds, in lowly and noble homes, and in
monasteries--
"Thank God, these words are in our hearts already. They have taught us
the way to God; they _have_ brought us peace and freedom."