INFLUENCE OF ISRAEL--DISCOVERERS AND REFORMERS.
HISTORY IN WORDS--BRITISH COAT OF ARMS--THE TEN TRIBES--ACCOUNT
OF ESDRAS--DISPERSION OF THE TRIBES--MIXED SEED OF ISRAEL--EFFECT
ON EUROPEAN SOCIETY--JEWISH INFLUENCE--DISCOVERY OF CAPE OF GOOD
HOPE--PACIFIC OCEAN DISCOVERED--MAGELLAN'S VOYAGE--DISCOVERS CAPE
HORN--DISTANCE SAILED--DEATH OF MAGELLAN--VOYAGE COMPLETED--ITS EFFECT
ON THE PUBLIC--HUSS AND JEROME BURNED--JOHN ZISKA--PERSECUTIONS
OF WALDENSES--CAPTURE OF MENTZ--DISPERSION OF PRINTERS--HANS
BOHEIM--JOSS FRITZ--SALE OF INDULGENCES--MARTIN LUTHER BURNS THE POPE'S
LETTER--GRAND COUNCIL AT WORMS--ROME IN A RAGE--LUTHER KIDNAPPED.
One of the most pleasing and at the same time instructive amusements
in which a thoughtful mind can engage, is to trace the derivation of
certain words of our language to the primitive times and people where
they originated, and thus learn the social and mental condition of the
people who first used them. It is pleasing to know that _dish_ and
_mop_, _mat_ and _rug_, and other household terms are the very words
that were spoken by the women of ancient Britain, two thousand years
ago, and have been handed down from generation to generation, with
little or no variation. In like manner the words _ax_, _plow_, _house_,
_post_, _bed_, _fire_, and hundreds of others, can be easily discerned
under the old Saxon forms. And as these words are precisely those that
would be used by a rude or half-civilized people, while those words
that refer to a more advanced state of society cannot be traced to our
Saxon ancestors we may correctly infer the extent of their knowledge
{86} and social condition. Further, as the ancient British words refer
to domestic affairs while those of Saxon origin refer exclusively to
the avocations of man, we can easily perceive that the Anglo-Saxon
tongue has originated from the marriage of the ancient British women
with their Saxon conquerors.
Hence Max Muller, the learned professor of languages, in the university
at Oxford, England, very justly remarks that "by means of philology we
have a more accurate record of our race than any narrative written by
prejudice or ill-informed historians."
Now it is generally admitted that Germans, Anglo-Saxons and men
descended from these nationalities, in one word, German thought, led
the van of progress in science, literature and religious thought,
during the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and in fact
has continued to do so up to the present time.
From the fifth century, when Attila, king of the Huns, declared himself
"The scourge of God," wave after wave of conquest by these hardy
warriors had swept over the hills and plains of western and southern
Europe, until their blood and their love of civil and religious liberty
were infused into every European nation.
Now the language of the Goths, or ancient Germans, plainly indicates
that they were not the primitive people of Europe, but had conquered
and intermingled with them in the same manner as the Saxons conquered
and intermingled with the inhabitants of ancient Britain, or the
Spaniards with those of Mexico.
But it may be asked, whence came they? In this connection two other
questions may also be asked: why is it that the German language
contains so many idioms and terms that bear a close relationship to
the language of the ancient Hebrews and Chaldeans? (_See Max Muller's
lectures on language_.) And why is it that the lion, which was the
emblem of Judah, and the unicorn, which was the emblem of Israel, are
in modern times, emblazoned on the coat of arms of England? (_See
Ant. of Jews by Josephus, also Num. xxiii., 22 and Deut. xxxiii, 17_.)
These questions are worthy of deep and {87} careful consideration; and
to better understand them it will be necessary to briefly trace the
history of the children of Israel.
As is well known, after the death of Solomon the kingdom was divided
into two parts, known as the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of
Israel. In 730 B. C, Hashem, king of Israel, became tributary to
Shalmaneser, king of Assyria. Nine years later his capital was taken
and the greater portion of the people were carried away captive beyond
the river Euphrates, and people from other countries were put in
possession of their inheritance. In the Apocrypha the Prophet Esdras
states that these ten tribes went a journey of a year and a half into
the north country. He says: "These are the ten tribes which were
carried away prisoners out of their own land in the time of Hosea the
king, whom Shalmaneser the king of Assyria led away captive; and he
carried them over the waters so they came into another land. But they
took this council among themselves, that they would leave the multitude
of the heathen and go forth into a farther country where never mankind
dwelt, that they might there keep their statutes which they never kept
in their own land. For through that country there was a great way to
go, namely, in a year and a half's journey, and the same region is
called Arsareth." (_II. Esdras, xiii, 40, 41, 42 and 45_.)
Now by looking on a map of the eastern continent it will be seen at
once that the Black Sea and the Caucasus mountains lie directly north
of the river Euphrates. It is quite possible that the Black Sea is
the "waters" to which Esdras refers. Also Josephus, in speaking of
the return of the Jews under Esdras, says, "Many of them took their
effects with them and came to Babylon, as very desirous of going down
to Jerusalem, but then the entire body of the people of Israel remained
in that country, wherefore there are but two tribes in Asia and Europe
subject to the Romans, while the ten tribes are beyond the Euphrates
till now, and are an immense multitude and not to be estimated by
numbers." (_Ant. Book II. chapter 5_.)
Perhaps the words of the ancient Roman are not altogether fable when
he says that "Beyond the Borean (Caucasus) Mountains live a people who
are sublime in their virtue since they {88} dwell very distant form the
provinces, in great simplicity and give great heed to the oracles which
their gods have given unto them." Thus we have not only the sure word
of prophecy, but likewise the admission of heathen writers.
Max Muller, in his work on language, in referring to the migrations of
ancient European tribes, says, "Two great routes lay before them, one
by way of the valleys of the Don and Volga across modern Russia to the
shores of the Baltic, the other along the shores of the Black Sea to
the valley of the Danube."
He also demonstrates the close relationship that exists between the
Hebrew language and the language of the people of Finland in western
Russia. Considering that more than twenty-five centuries have rolled by
since the dispersion of Israel, sufficient time has elapsed for mighty
changes. Muller adds in another place, "The time was when the ancestors
of the Indians, the Fins, the Slavonic and German tribes of central
Europe and the modern English lived in one enclosure, nay, under the
same roof."
In the latter part of the second century or beginning of the third,
these new settlers had spread as far westward as the Danube, and
settled in the Roman province of Dacia, which lay on the north bank of
that river. They also asked permission to cross the river which was
granted under certain stipulations.
Still they continued to increase in numbers, and by inter-marriage with
the native tribes had in the fifth century become formidable enemies
of Rome and under the name of Dacians, Huns, Vandals, Ostrogoths,
Visigoths, Suevi and Heruli precipitated themselves upon Italy and
wreaked a terrible vengeance.
The history of some of these, as the Huns for example, may be traced to
the second century before the Christian era and to the very locality
indicated by the Prophet Esdras and by Josephus. For over twenty-six
centuries these scattered tribes have continued to mix up with the
nations of the earth, but in their long migrations westward they have
lost many of their distinctive characteristics.
{89} Doubtless it is from this mixed seed of Israel that many, aye
nearly all, the great reformers, inventors and discoverers have sprung.
This infusion of new blood had a marked effect on the nations of
western Europe, but more especially on Italy, which had continued to
decline, from the days of Augustus, until these nations mingled with
the degenerate ancient race, and infused new life into her decaying
civilization. The result was that a succession of poets, painters,
sculptors, philosophers, inventors and discoverers sprung up in Italy
and western Europe unparalleled in the history of the world. Above all,
the invention of printing had just come in time to spread whatever new
ideas were afloat, with a rapidity never known before. In fifty-two
years from the time of that invention came the discovery of America.
Five years later two Jewish priests, Rabbi Abraham, and Rabbi Joseph,
brought to King John II., of Portugal, a Saracen map of the entire
coast of Africa.
Thus instructed King John sent out several expeditions in one of which
Brazil was accidentally discovered. Aided by this, Vasco de Gama set
sail, and on Nov. 20th, 1497, rounded the cape of Good Hope. Sixteen
years later Balboa discovered the Pacific Ocean, and six years still
later, or in A. D. 1519, Magellan set out on his memorable voyage to
circumnavigate the world.
The story of that voyage of wild adventure seems never to grow old by
repeating. The narrative of that voyage is too long for this brief
sketch, but a few items may not be out of place.
After many months of sailing in strange seas, he at length discovered a
new land to which he gave the name of Patagonia. Here he found giants
clad in skins, one of whom was greatly terrified at seeing his own
image in a looking-glass.
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[Image: The Straits of Magellan.]
His perseverance was at last rewarded, and after fifteen months of
struggling and adventures he discovered Cape Horn, passed through the
strait which now bears his name and entered the Great South Sea, on
Nov. 28th, 1520. An eye-witness relates that he shed tears of joy when
he recognized its great expanse, and that God had brought him where
he might grapple with its unknown dangers. Admiring its placid {91}
surface he courteously gave it the name it will ever bear, the "Pacific
Ocean." Magellan was the first European to discover that when the
nights are long in the northern hemisphere they are correspondingly
short in the southern. When he passed through the straits the nights
were only four hours long. At the same time in Spain they were nearly
fifteen hours long. And now the great sailor having burst through the
barrier of the great American continent steered for the north-west. For
three months and fifteen days he sailed on and on, but saw no inhabited
land.
He and his crew were compelled by famine to soak old leather in the
sea, then boil it and make of it a wretched food; and to drink water
that had become putrid by keeping; yet he resolutely held his course,
though his men were dying daily. He estimated that he sailed over this
unknown sea more than twelve thousand miles.
In the whole history of human undertakings there is nothing that
exceeds, if indeed there is anything that equals, this voyage of
Magellan. That of Columbus dwindles away in comparison. It is a display
of super-human courage and perseverance, an exhibition of heroic
resolution, not to be diverted from its purpose by any motive, or any
suffering, but inflexibly persisting to its end.
This unparalleled resolution met its reward at last. He reached the
Ladrones, a group of islands north of the equator. Thence he sailed
to the Spice Islands, where he met with European merchants. He had
accomplished his object and proven that the earth was round. At an
island called Zebu, or Mutan, he was murdered either by the natives
or by his own men. In a few days more his crew learned that they were
actually in the vicinity of their friends. On the morning of Nov. 8th,
1521, they entered Tidore, the capital of the Spice Islands, and the
king swore upon the Koran alliance to the sovereign of Spain.
Magellan's crew continued their voyage amid hardships and perils, and
at length, on Sept. 10th, 1522, the good ship, _San Vittoria_, sailed
into the very port from which she had departed just three years and
twenty-seven days before. She had accomplished the greatest achievement
in the history of the {92} human race. She had circumnavigated the
earth. Magellan lost his life in his great enterprise, but he made his
name immortal. His lieutenant Sebastian d'Elcano received the proudest
and noblest medal ever given to a sailor. It was a golden globe belted
with this inscription, _Primus circumdedisti me_--"Thou hast first
circumnavigated me."
At the present time it is almost impossible to conceive the effect of
Magellan's voyage had upon the public mind. One of the leading dogmas
of Rome had been that the earth was flat. Now it was proved that the
earth was indeed a vast ball. If Rome had been in error in this case,
where was her infallibility? Might not some of her other teachings be
equally false? Many leading minds began to doubt her authority. Even
Pope Leo X., is said to have become skeptical. At all events he chose
to spend his leisure time in his library reading to his sister out
of the beautiful new printed books which were then throwing a flood
of intellectual light on all grades of society. The philosophy of
Aristotle and Plato, the poems of Homer and Virgil, the sciences of the
Saracens and the narratives of the adventures of Columbus and Vasco de
Gama had more charms for him than burning and torturing heretics as his
predecessors had done.
While science was undermining the influence of Rome in one direction,
religious thought was busy at work in another. That great religious
revolution commonly called the Reformation had long been gathering its
forces; and already sounded from behind the Alps the loud clarion of
battle.
The memory of John Huss and Jerome of Prague was still fresh in the
minds of the populace. Huss had been burned at Constance, in A. D.
1415, and Jerome the year following. When the news of these barbarous
executions reached Bohemia, it threw the whole kingdom into confusion
and a civil war was kindled from the ashes of the martyrs.
John Ziska, the leader of the populace, collected an army of forty
thousand men and defeated the emperor, Sigismund, in several battles.
When Ziska found that he was dying, he gave orders that his skin
should be made into a drum which was long the symbol of victory to his
followers.
{93} [Image: The Rack.]
The Waldenses also who dwelt in the valleys of Switzerland and Piedmont
had lively memories of cruel wrongs. Their ancestors had been destroyed
by Pope Innocent III., and as late as A. D. 1487, they had been driven
to the mountains and obliged to wander there until their feeble and
little ones were {94} left buried in the Alpine snows. No wonder they
chanted that grand old Hymn, commencing:
"O God, arise, avenge Thy slaughtered Saints,
Whose bones lie bleaching on the Alpine mountains cold."
The writings of Dante and Petrarch, Reuchlin and Erasmus, were already
scattered in every direction, by means of the printing press, and
wielded a mighty influence in society.
The siege and capture of Mentz, in A. D. 1462, had the effect of
scattering Guttenberg and his co-workers. Printing presses were
established immediately afterwards in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Holland,
France and England.
In 1476, on the banks of the river Maine, in central Germany had
appeared a strange character named Hans Boheim. He professed to be
a prophet of God, to have received visions, and to have been sent
to proclaim that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. More than forty
thousand men flocked to his standard. At length the bishops of Mentz
and Wurtzburg interfered, dispersed the crowd and burned the prophet.
He was but a sign of the times--"a voice crying in the wilderness." His
memory was not forgotten. In 1493, another movement took place, and
again in 1501. Maximilian, the emperor of Germany, ordered the leaders
to be quartered alive and their wives and children to be banished.
But the fire was only slumbering. In 1512, it commenced again on a
larger scale. It found a leader in Joss Fritz, a soldier of commanding
presence and great natural eloquence, used to battle and above all to
patience. He was one of those who had escaped being quartered. His
banner was blue silk with a white cross, and underneath the motto, "O
Lord, help the righteous." Fritz was the William Tell of his times. No
wonder his name is a favorite one among the Germans.
These conflicts, commonly known as the "Wars of the Peasants," had
shown the masses that with more union and better information they were
the real strength of the nation.
Such was the condition of affairs in the very locality where, four
years afterwards, burst forth the great religious revolution known as
the Reformation.
Society seemed waiting for a coming man of strong will and fervent
religious nature, who should give something of organization {95} to
those movements, and gather around him an irresistible phalanx of the
noble, the learned and ardent spirits of the age. This man was Martin
Luther. He came from his cell a shaven monk, in his hand no sceptre, on
his head no crown. But he had a human heart within him; and it gushed
out for human woe.
Strong in the principles of right he hurled the firebrands of truth
right and left and kindled such a flame that all the waves of error
could never quench it.
The immediate cause of the Reformation was when John Tetzel, in 1574,
was sent into Germany to sell indulgences.
The church of Rome had long taught the people that the pope and clergy
under him held the keys of heaven. At this time the pope was in need of
means to complete that great cathedral called St. Peter's Church. He
therefore issued indulgences or pardons for all kinds of sins. These
pardons or indulgences entitled whoever bought them to a free passport
to heaven. Nor was this all. A man of sufficient wealth could purchase
the pardon of a sin he _intended_ to commit. Thus the civil law was
shorn of its power and the nation of its wealth.
This bold blasphemy provoked the indignation of a people already ripe
for revolution.
Luther, then thirty-four years of age, began to denounce the sale of
these indulgences. In 1520, the pope issued a decree, or bull, as it
was called, condemning Luther and his writings. Luther in turn defied
the pope. When the news reached him he took the decree and all the
Roman books he could find, and on December 10, 1520, burned them in a
public place just outside the walls of the city of Wittenberg. Then
Luther was summoned to appear before a grand council, or court, to
be held in the city of Worms. His friends procured him a passport or
pledge of security, lest the papal authorities should take his life.
Accordingly, on the 17th of April, 1521, Luther appeared before the
council, or diet, as it was called. The Emperor Charles V., of Germany,
presided in person. When Luther was asked to recant his opinions and
deny his own teachings, he not only refused to do so but also pleaded
his own cause {96} with eloquence and power. So powerful were his
arguments that many of the nobility were won over to his side. A poor
monk, the son of a simple peasant, clad in the armor of truth, had
defied and defeated the proudest potentates of earth! No wonder that
Rome was in a rage! No wonder that the friends of Luther deemed it
advisable to kidnap him and carry him away to the castle of Wartburg,
in the solitudes of the Thuringian forest! No wonder that those
valiant knights, Ulrich von Hutten and Franz von Sickingen, prepared
to use their swords and eloquence in defense of right! We may not in
all things admire the character of Luther or defend his acts; yet no
grander figure appears on the pages of modern history than Luther, as,
with one hand upon his breast and the other lifted towards heaven, he
refused the emperor's demand to retract his writings or deny the truth,
closing with these memorable words, "_Hier stehe ich, Gott helfe mir.
Amen_." "Here I stand, God help me. Amen."
The battle that Luther fought was not only for Germany and the
sixteenth century, but for all countries, all peoples and all coming
times. It was a battle not merely against the pope, but against all
powers religious or secular, that seek to enchain the human mind or
prevent the free exercise of religion.
{97}