Before I left Ebernburg, the knight Ulrich von Hutten had taken a warm
interest in my expedition; had especially recommended me to seek out
Erasmus, if ever I reached Switzerland; and had himself placed some
copies of Erasmus' sermons, "Praise of folly," among my books.
Personally I feel a strong attachment to that brave knight. I can never
forget the generous letter he wrote to Luther before his appearance at
the Diet:--"_The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble: the name of the
God of Jacob defend thee._ O my beloved Luther, my reverend father, fear
not; be strong. Fight valiantly for Christ. As for me, I also will fight
bravely. Would to God I might see how they knit their brows.... May
Christ preserve you."
Yes, to see the baffled enemies knit their brows as they did then, would
have been a triumph to the impetuous soldier, but at the time he was
prohibited from approaching the Court. Luther's courageous and noble
defence filled him with enthusiastic admiration. He declared the doctor
to be a greater soldier than any of the knights. When he heard of Dr.
Luther's disappearance he would have collected a band of daring spirits
like himself, and scoured the country in search of him. Hutten's objects
were high and unselfish. He had no mean and petty ambitions. With sword
and pen he had contended against oppression and hypocrisy. To him the
Roman Court was detestable, chiefly as a foreign yoke; the corrupt
priesthood, as a domestic usurpation. He had a high ideal of knighthood,
and believed that his order, enlightened by learning, and inspired by a
free and lofty faith, might emancipate Germany and Christendom. Personal
danger he despised, and personal aims.
Yet with all his fearlessness and high aspirations, I scarcely think he
hoped himself to be the hero of his ideal chivalry. The self-control of
the pure true knight was too little his. In his visions of a Christendom
from which falsehood and avarice were to be banished, and where
authority was to reside in an order of ideal knights, Franz von
Sickingen, the brave good lord of Ebernburg, with his devout wife
Hedwiga, was to raise the standard, around which Ulrich and all the true
men in the land were to rally. Luther, Erasmus, and Sickingen, he
thought--the types of the three orders, learning, knighthood, and
priesthood,--might regenerate the world.
Erasmus had begun the work with unveiling the light in the sanctuaries
of learning. Luther had carried it on by diffusing the light among the
people. The knights must complete it by forcibly scattering the powers
of darkness. Conflict is Erasmus' detestation. It is Luther's necessity.
It is Hutten's delight.
I did not, however, expect much sympathy in my work from Erasmus. It
seemed to me that Hutten, admiring his clear, luminous genius,
attributed to him the fire of his own warm and courageous heart.
However, I intended to seek him out at Basel.
Circumstances saved me the trouble.
As I was entering the city, with my pack nearly empty, hoping to
replenish it from the presses of Frobenius, an elderly man, with a stoop
in his shoulders, giving him the air of a student, ambled slowly past
me, clad in a doctor's gown and hat, edged with a broad border of fur.
The keen small dark eyes surveyed me and my pack for a minute, and then
reining in his horse he joined me, and said, in a soft voice and courtly
accent, "We are of the same profession, friend. We manufacture, and you
sell. What have you in your pack?"
I took out three of my remaining volumes. One was Luther's "Commentary
on the Galatians;" the others, his "Treatise on the Lord's Prayer," and
his "Letter to the German Nobles."
The rider's brow darkened slightly, and he eyed me suspiciously.
"Men who supply ammunition to the people in times of insurrection seldom
do it at their own risk," he said. "Young man, you are on a perilous
mission, and would do well to count the cost."
"I have counted the cost, sir," I said, "and I willingly brave the
peril."
"Well, well," he replied, "some are born for battle-fields, and some for
martyrdom; others for neither. Let each keep to his calling,--
'Nequissimam pacem justissimo bello antifero'
But 'those who let in the sea on the marshes little know where it will
spread.'"
This illustration from the Dutch dykes awakened my suspicions as to who
the rider was, and looking at the thin, sensitive, yet satirical lips,
the delicate, sharply-cut features, the pallid complexion, and the dark
keen eyes I had seen represented in so many portraits, I could not doubt
with whom I was speaking. But I did not betray my discovery.
"Dr. Luther has written some good things, nevertheless," he said. "If he
had kept to such devotional works as this," returning to me "The Lord's
prayer," "he might have served his generation quietly and well; but to
expose such mysteries as are treated of here to the vulgar gaze, it is
madness!" and he hastily closed the "Galatians." Then glancing at the
"Letter to the Nobles," he almost threw it into my hand, saying
petulently,--
"That pamphlet is an insurrection in itself."
"What other books have you?" he asked after a pause.