XVI.
Else's Story.
WITTEMBERG, _July_ 13, 1520.
Many events have happened since last I wrote, both in this little worldand in the large world outside.
Our Gretchen has two little brothers, who are as ingenious indestruction, and seem to have as many designs against their own welfare,as their uncles had at their age, and seem likely to perplex Gretchen,dearly as she loves them, much as Christopher and Pollux did me.Chriemhild is married, and has gone to her home in the ThuringianForest. Atlantis is betrothed to Conrad Winkelried, a Swiss student.Pollux is gone to Spain, on some mercantile affairs of the Eisenachhouse of Cotta, in which he is a partner; and Fritz has been among usonce more. That is now about two years since. He was certainly muchgraver than of old. Indeed he often looked more than grave, as if someweight of sorrow rested on him. But with our mother and the children hewas always cheerful.
Gretchen and Uncle Fritz formed the strongest mutual attachment, and tothis day she often asks me when he will come back; and nothing delightsher more than to sit on my knee before his picture, and hear me tellover and over again the stories of our old talks in the lumber-room atEisenach, or of the long days we used to spend in the pine forests,gathering wood for the winter fires. She thinks no festival could be sodelightful as that; and her favourite amusement is to gather littlebundles of willow or oak twigs, by the river Elbe, or on the DuebenHeath, and bring them home for household use. All the splendid puppetsand toys her father brings her from Nueremberg, or has sent from Venice,do not give her half the pleasure that she finds in the heath, when hetakes her there, and she returns with her little apron full of drysticks, and her hands as brown and dirty as a little wood-cutter's,fancying she is doing what Uncle Fritz and I did when we were children,and being useful.
Last summer she was endowed with a special apple and pear tree of herown, and the fruit of these she stores with her little fagots to give atChristmas to a poor old woman we know.
Gottfried and I want the children to learn early that pure joy ofgiving, and of doing kindnesses, which transmutes wealth from dust intotrue gold, and prevents these possessions which are such good servantsfrom becoming our masters, and reducing us, as they seem to do so manywealthy people, into the mere slaves and hired guardians of _things_.
I pray God often that the experience of poverty which I had for so manyyears may never be lost. It seems to me a gift God has given me, just asa course at the university is a gift. I have graduated in the school ofpoverty, and God grant I may never forget the secrets poverty taught meabout the struggles and wants of the poor.
The room in which I write now, with its carpets, pictures, and carvedfurniture, is very different from the dear bare old lumber-room where Ibegan my Chronicle; and the inlaid ebony and ivory cabinet on which mypaper lies is a different desk from the piles of old books where I usedto trace the first pages slowly in a childish hand. But the poor man'sluxuries will always be the most precious to me. The warm sunbeams,shining through the translucent vine-leaves at the open window, arefairer than all the jewel-like Venetian glass of the closed casementswhich are now dying crimson the pages of Dr. Luther's Commentary, leftopen on the window-seat an hour since by Gottfried.
But how can I be writing so much about my own tiny world, when all theworld around me is agitated by such great fears and hopes?
At this moment, through the open window, I see Dr. Luther and Dr. PhilipMelancthon walking slowly up the street in close conversation. The humof their voices reaches me here, although they are talking low. Howdifferent they look, and are; and yet what friends they have become!Probably, in a great degree, because of the difference. The one lookslike a veteran soldier, with his rock-like brow, his dark eyes, hisvigorous form, and his firm step; the other, with his high, expandedforehead, his thin worn face, and his slight youthful frame, like acombination of a young student and an old philosopher.
Gottfried says God has given them to each other and to Germany, blessingthe Church as he does the world by the union of opposites, rain andsunshine, heat and cold, sea and land, husband and wife.
How those two great men (for Gottfried says Dr. Melancthon is great, andI know that Dr. Luther is) love and reverence each other! Dr. Luthersays he is but the forerunner, and Melancthon the true prophet; that heis but the wood-cutter clearing the forest with rough blows, that Dr.Philip may sow the precious seed; and when he went to encounter thelegate at Augsburg, he wrote, that if Philip lived it mattered littlewhat became of him.
But _we_ do not think so, nor does Dr. Melancthon. "No one," he says,"comes near Dr. Luther, and indeed the heart of the whole nation hangson him. Who stirs the heart of Germany--of nobles, peasants, princes,women, children--as he does with his noble, faithful words?"
Twice during these last years we have been in the greatest anxiety abouthis safety,--once when he was summoned before the legate at Augsburg,and once when he went to the great disputation with Dr. Eck at Leipsic.
But how great the difference between his purpose when he went toAugsburg, and when he returned from Leipsic!
At Augsburg he would have conceded anything, but the truth about thefree justification of every sinner who believes in Christ. He reverencedthe Pope; he would not for the world become a heretic! No name ofopprobrium was so terrible to him as that.
At Leipsic he had learned to disbelieve that the Pope had any authorityto determine doctrine, and he boldly confessed that the Hussites (mentill now abhorred in Saxony as natural enemies as well as deadlyheretics) ought to be honoured for confessing sound truth. And from thattime both Dr. Luther and Melancthon have stood forth openly as thechampions of the Word of God against the Papacy.
Now, however, a worse danger threatens him, even the bull ofexcommunication which they say is now being forged at Rome, and whichhas never yet failed to crush where it has fallen. Dr. Luther has,indeed, taught us not to dread it as a spiritual weapon, but we fear itstemporal effects, especially if followed by the ban of the empire.
Often, indeed, he talks of taking refuge in some other land; the goodElector, even himself, has at times advised it, fearing no longer to beable to protect him. But God preserve him to Germany!
_June_ 23, 1520.
This evening, as we were sitting in my father's house, Christopherbrought us, damp from the press, a copy of Dr. Luther's Appeal to HisImperial Majesty, and to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, onthe Reformation of Christendom. Presenting it to our grandmother, hesaid,--
"Here, madam, is a weapon worthy of the bravest days of the Schoenbergs,mighty to the pulling down of strongholds."
"Ah," sighed our mother, "always wars and fightings! It is a pity thegood work cannot be done more quietly."
"Ah, grandmother," said my father, "only see how her burgher life hasdestroyed the heroic spirit of her crusading ancestors. She thinks thatthe Holy Places are to be won back from the infidels without a blow,only by begging their pardon and kissing the hem of their garments."
"You should hear Catherine Krapp, Dr. Melancthon's wife!" rejoined ourmother; "she agrees with me that these are terrible times. She says shenever sees the doctor go away without thinking he may be immured in somedreadful dungeon before they meet again."
"But remember, dear mother," I said, "your fears when first Dr. Lutherassailed Tetzel and his indulgences three years ago! And who has gainedthe victory there? Dr. Martin is the admiration of all good menthroughout Germany; and poor Tetzel, despised by his own party, rebukedby the legate, died, they say, of a broken heart just after the greatLeipsic disputation."
"Poor Tetzel!" said my father, "his indulgences could not bind up abroken heart. I shall always love Dr. Luther for writing him a letter ofcomfort when he was dying, despised and forsaken even by his own party.I trust that He who can pardon has had mercy on his soul."
"Read to us, Christopher," said our grandmother; "your mother would notshrink from any battle-field if
there were wounds there which her handscould bind."
"No," said Gottfried, "the end of war is peace,--God's peace, based onHis truth. Blessed are those who in the struggle never lose sight of theend."
Christopher read, not without interruption. Many things in the book werenew and startling to most of us:--
"It is not rashly," Dr. Luther began, "that I, a man of the people,undertake to address your lord-ships. The wretchedness and oppressionthat now overwhelm all the states of Christendom, and Germany inparticular, force from me a cry of distress. I am constrained to callfor help; I must see whether God will not bestow his Spirit on some manbelonging to our country, and stretch forth his hand to our unhappynation."
Dr. Luther never seems to think _he_ is to do the great work. He speaksas if he were only fulfilling some plain humble duty, and calling othermen to undertake the great achievement; and all the while that humbleduty _is_ the great achievement, and he is doing it.
Dr. Luther spoke of the wretchedness of Italy, the unhappy land wherethe Pope's throne is set, her ruined monasteries, her decayed cities,her corrupted people; and then he showed how Roman avarice and pridewere seeking to reduce Germany to a state as enslaved. He appealed tothe young emperor, Charles, soon about to be crowned. He reminded allthe rulers of their responsibilities. He declared that the papalterritory, called the patrimony of St. Peter, was the fruit of robbery.Generously holding out his hand to the very outcasts his enemies hadsought to insult him most grievously by comparing him with, he said,--
"It is time that we were considering the cause of the Bohemians, andre-uniting ourselves to them."
At these words my grandmother dropped her work, and fervently claspingher hands, leant forward, and fixing her eyes on Christopher, drank inevery word with intense eagerness.
When he came to the denunciation of the begging friars, and therecommendation that the parish priests should marry, Christopherinterrupted himself by an enthusiastic "vivat."
When, however, after a vivid picture of the oppressions and avarice ofthe legates, came the solemn abjuration:--
"Hearest thou this, O Pope, not most holy, but most sinful? May God fromthe heights of his heaven soon hurl thy throne into the abyss!" mymother turned pale, and crossed herself.
What impressed me most was the plain declaration:--
"It has been alleged that the Pope, the bishops, the priests, and themonks and nuns form the estate spiritual or ecclesiastical; while theprinces, nobles, burgesses, and peasantry form the secular estate orlaity. Let no man, however, be alarmed at this. _All Christiansconstitute the spiritual estate: and the only difference among them isthat of the functions which they discharge._ We have all one baptism,one faith, and it is this which constitutes the spiritual man."
If this is indeed true, how many of my old difficulties it removes witha stroke! All callings, then, may be religious callings; all men andwomen of a religious order. Then my mother is truly and undoubtedly asmuch treading the way appointed her as Aunt Agnes; and the monastic lifeis only one among callings equally sacred.
When I said this to my mother, she said, "I as religious a woman as AuntAgnes! No, Else! whatever Dr. Luther ventures to declare, he would notsay that. I do sometimes have a hope that for His dear Son's sake Godhears even my poor feeble prayers; but to pray night and day, andabandon all for God, like my sister Agnes, that is another thingaltogether."
But when, as we crossed the street to our home, I told Gottfried howmuch those words of Dr. Luther had touched me, and asked if he reallythought we in our secular calling were not only doing our work by a kindof indirect permission, but by a direct vocation from God, he replied,--
"My doubt, Else, is whether the vocation which leads men to abandon homeis from God at all; whether it has either his command or even hispermission."
But if Gottfried is right, Fritz has sacrificed his life to a delusion.How can I believe that? And yet if he could perceive it, how life mightchange for him! Might he not even yet be restored to us? But I amdreaming.
_October_ 25, 1520.
More and more burning words from Dr. Luther. To-day we have been readinghis new book on the Babylonish Captivity. "God has said," he writes inthis, "'Whosoever shall believe and be baptized shall be saved.' On thispromise, if we receive it with faith, hangs our whole salvation. If webelieve, our heart is fortified by the divine promise; and although allshould forsake the believer, this promise which he believes will neverforsake him. With it he will resist the adversary who rushes upon hissoul, and will have wherewithal to answer pitiless death, and even thejudgment of God." And he says in another place, "The vow made at ourbaptism is sufficient of itself, and comprehends more than we can everaccomplish. Hence all other vows may be abolished. Whoever enters thepriesthood or any religious order, let him well understand that theworks of a monk or of a priest, however difficult they may be, differ inno respect in the sight of God from those of a countryman who tills theground, or of a woman who conducts a household. God values all things bythe standard of faith. And it often happens that the simple labour of amale or female servant is more agreeable to God than the fasts and theworks of a monk, because in these faith is wanting."
What a consecration this thought gives to my commonest duties! Yes, whenI am directing the maids in their work, or sharing Gottfried's cares, orsimply trying to brighten his home at the end of the busy day, orlulling my children to sleep, can I indeed be serving God as much as Dr.Luther at the altar or in his lecture-room? I also, then, have indeed myvocation direct from God.
How could I ever have thought the mere publication of a book would havebeen an event to stir our hearts like the arrival of a friend! Yet it iseven thus with every one of those pamphlets of Dr. Luther's. They movethe whole of our two households, from our grandmother to Thekla, andeven the little maid, to whom I read portions. She says, with tears, "Ifthe mother and father could hear this in the forest!" Students andburghers have not patience to wait till they reach home, but read theheart-stirring pages as they walk through the streets. And often anaudience collects around some communicative reader, who cannot becontent with keeping the free, liberating truths to himself.
Already, Christopher says, four thousand copies of the "Appeal to theNobility" are circulating through Germany.
I always thought before of books as the peculiar property of thelearned. But Dr. Luther's books are a living voice,--a heart God hasawakened and taught, speaking to countless hearts as a man talketh withhis friend. I can indeed see now, with my father and Christopher, thatthe printing press is a nobler weapon than even the spears andbroadswords of our knightly Bohemian ancestors.
WITTEMBERG, _December_ 10, 1520.
Dr. Luther has taken a great step to-day. He has publicly burned theDecretals, with other ancient writings, on which the claims of the courtof Rome are founded, but which are now declared to be forgeries; andmore than this, he has burnt the Pope's bull of excommunication againsthimself.
Gottfried says that for centuries such a bonfire as this has not beenseen. He thinks it means nothing less than an open and deliberaterenunciation of the papal tyranny which for so many hundred years hasheld the whole of western Christendom in bondage. He took our two boysto see it, that we may remind them of it in after years as the firstgreat public act of freedom.
Early in the morning the town was astir. Many of the burghers,professors, and students knew what was about to be done; for this was nodeed of impetuous haste or angry vehemence.
I dressed the children early, and we went to my father's house.
Wittemberg is as full now of people of various languages as the tower ofBabel must have been after the confusion of tongues. But never was thismore manifest than to-day.
Flemish monks from the Augustine cloisters at Antwerp; Dutch studentsfrom Finland; Swiss youths, with their erect forms and free mountaingait; knights from Prussia and Lithuania; strangers even from quiteforeign lands,-
-all attracted hither by Dr. Luther's living words oftruth, passed under our windows about nine o'clock this morning, in thedirection of the Elster gate, eagerly gesticulating and talking as theywent. Then Thekla, Atlantis, and I mounted to an upper room, and watchedthe smoke rising from the pile, until the glare of the conflagrationburst through it, and stained with a faint red the pure daylight.
Soon afterwards the crowds began to return: but there seemed to me to bea gravity and solemnity in the manner of most, different from the eagerhaste with which they had gone forth.
"They seem like men returning from some great Church festival," I said.
"Or from lighting a signal-fire on the mountains, which shall awaken thewhole land to freedom," said Christopher, as they rejoined us.
"Or from binding themselves with a solemn oath to liberate their homes,like the Three Men at Gruetly," said Conrad Winkelried, the young Swissto whom Atlantis is betrothed.
"Yes," said Gottfried, "fires which may be the beacons of a world'sdeliverance, and may kindle the death-piles of those who dared to lightthem, are no mere students' bravado."
"Who did the deed, and what was burned?" I asked.
"One of the masters of arts lighted the pile," my husband replied, "andthen threw on it the Decretals, the false Epistles of St. Clement, andother forgeries, which have propped up the edifice of lies forcenturies. And when the flames which consumed them had done their workand died away, Dr. Luther himself, stepping forward, solemnly laid thePope's bull of excommunication on the fire, saying amidst the breathlesssilence, 'As thou hast troubled the Lord's saints, may the eternal firedestroy thee.' Not a word broke the silence until the last crackle andgleam of those symbolical flames had ceased, and then gravely butjoyfully we all returned to our homes."
"Children," said our grandmother, "you have done well; yet you are notthe first that have defied Rome."
"Nor perhaps the last she will silence," said my husband. "But the lastenemy will be destroyed at last; and meantime every martyr is a victor."